Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH Acquires 11,482 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH grew its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 124,135 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 11,482 shares during the quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH’s holdings in Accenture were worth $43,669,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% during the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth $39,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total value of $2,945,801.52. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. This trade represents a 40.03 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 15,845 shares of company stock worth $5,645,518. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Barclays boosted their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.74.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $356.31 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $222.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.89, a PEG ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $357.49 and a 200-day moving average price of $346.26.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan 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 repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.66%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

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.