Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Co Makes New Investment in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Co bought a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm bought 95,000 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $33,420,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $21,246,236,000 after purchasing an additional 392,183 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,750,021,000 after buying an additional 136,665 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its position in Accenture by 22.8% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,283,225,000 after acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $2,351,683,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,746,455,000 after purchasing an additional 140,726 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’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 sale, the chief financial officer now directly 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 legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently commented on ACN. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. UBS Group cut their price target on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Guggenheim decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $285.04 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $349.68 and its 200 day simple moving average is $354.42. The firm has a market capitalization of $178.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.91, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

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.