J. W. Coons Advisors LLC Decreases Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

J. W. Coons Advisors LLC lessened its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.8% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 16,903 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 660 shares during the period. Accenture accounts for 1.5% of J. W. Coons Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest holding. J. W. Coons Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $5,975,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its position in Accenture by 1.2% in the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,311,102,000 after acquiring an additional 131,544 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 2.0% during the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,652,537 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,999,056,000 after purchasing an additional 173,107 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,786,256,000 after purchasing an additional 80,514 shares during the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 4.1% during the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 3,797,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,316,086,000 after purchasing an additional 148,738 shares during the period. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC increased its position in Accenture by 44.7% in the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after buying an additional 837,677 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Down 2.3 %

Accenture stock opened at $353.57 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $355.55 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $327.46. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $221.04 billion, a PE ratio of 30.93, a P/E/G ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.71 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of several research reports. Piper Sandler upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $329.00 to $395.00 in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Susquehanna increased their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

About Accenture

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.