B.O.S.S. Retirement Advisors LLC Acquires Shares of 1,195 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

B.O.S.S. Retirement Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 1,195 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $420,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd 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 buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 44.7% in the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after buying an additional 837,677 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its holdings in Accenture by 2,666.5% in the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 715,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $251,607,000 after buying an additional 689,366 shares in the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 37,788.5% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $180,401,000 after purchasing an additional 509,011 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Guggenheim raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Susquehanna raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.74.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $362.65 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $226.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.42, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $357.37 and a 200-day moving average of $347.30.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. The trade was a 40.03 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value 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 $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 17,332 shares of company stock valued at $6,172,719. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Profile

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.