Fermata Advisors LLC Sells 548 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Fermata Advisors LLC trimmed its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 26.4% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 1,529 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 548 shares during the quarter. Fermata Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $538,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of ACN. State Street Corp lifted its position in Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.4% in the 2nd 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 buying an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 1.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the period. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 44.7% during 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 purchasing an additional 837,677 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $350.92 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $219.60 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.44, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $357.85 and a two-hundred day moving average of $344.97.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on ACN. Guggenheim increased their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.04.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $369.97, for a total transaction of $1,757,357.50. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 22,976 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,500,430.72. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 26,125 shares of company stock valued at $9,570,260 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Profile

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.