Victory Capital Management Inc. Reduces Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Victory Capital Management Inc. decreased its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 9.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 340,563 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 35,382 shares during the quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $119,807,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 2.9% in the fourth 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 acquiring an additional 140,726 shares during the period. Swedbank AB lifted its stake in Accenture by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares during the period. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.5% in the third quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $668,974,000 after acquiring an additional 28,491 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $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 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $348.27 on Thursday. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $366.41 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $358.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The firm has a market cap of $217.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.22, a price-to-earnings-growth 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 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

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.