Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CEO Julie Spellman Sweet Sells 2,497 Shares

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link.

Julie Spellman Sweet also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, October 28th, Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of Accenture stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $359.08 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $357.40 and a 200 day simple moving average of $346.66. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $224.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.12, a P/E/G ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.24.

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, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Susquehanna lifted their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Guggenheim raised their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. 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 report on Tuesday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.74.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 78.6% during the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,047,000 after purchasing an additional 5,038 shares during the period. MQS Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 70.6% in the 3rd quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,581,000 after acquiring an additional 14,724 shares during the period. M&G PLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 34.1% during the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $103,361,000 after acquiring an additional 74,438 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp grew its holdings in Accenture by 18.7% during the second quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 172,199 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $52,247,000 after purchasing an additional 27,168 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% 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.