Ninety One UK Ltd Decreases Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Ninety One UK Ltd decreased its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.3% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 267,452 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 21,084 shares during the quarter. Ninety One UK Ltd’s holdings in Accenture were worth $94,087,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Czech National Bank grew its stake in Accenture by 6.5% during the 3rd quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 127,601 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $45,104,000 after purchasing an additional 7,791 shares during the last quarter. Everpar Advisors LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 26.8% in the third quarter. Everpar Advisors LLC now owns 1,122 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $397,000 after buying an additional 237 shares during the last quarter. Security National Bank increased its holdings in Accenture by 4.2% in the 3rd quarter. Security National Bank now owns 17,188 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,076,000 after buying an additional 696 shares during the period. Greenfield Savings Bank acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $227,000. Finally, Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 18.7% in the 3rd quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 654 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $231,000 after acquiring an additional 103 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total value of $1,723,205.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now owns 20,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,446,422.28. The trade was a 18.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 13,255 shares of company stock valued at $4,756,101 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently issued reports on ACN. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $391.98 on Wednesday. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $392.45. The company has a market cap of $245.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.88, a P/E/G ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $360.05 and its 200-day moving average price is $350.64.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during 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 business’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.51%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

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.