Qsemble Capital Management LP Purchases New Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Qsemble Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor acquired 4,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,597,000.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the 2nd quarter worth $26,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the second quarter worth $28,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its position in Accenture by 607.1% in the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the period. Finally, Creekmur Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 108.0% during the 1st quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 54 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Mizuho upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. BNP Paribas downgraded Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Piper Sandler Companies restated a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. 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, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $361.29 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $225.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.61, a PEG ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.25. The business has a 50-day moving average of $356.57 and a 200-day moving average of $329.61.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The business’s revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.71 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.64%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. Company insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

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.