Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Great Lakes Advisors LLC

Great Lakes Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.6% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 47,407 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 728 shares during the quarter. Great Lakes Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $16,677,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA grew its position in Accenture by 6.5% during the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after buying an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% in the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $812,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares during the last quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 78.6% in the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,047,000 after purchasing an additional 5,038 shares during the last quarter. MQS Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $1,040,000. Finally, Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 126.8% in the fourth quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $14,090,000 after purchasing an additional 22,391 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised 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. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $324.25 on Thursday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $364.36 and its 200-day simple moving average is $358.39. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. 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 has a market cap of $202.91 billion, a PE ratio of 27.20, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Company 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.