Norris Perne & French LLP MI Acquires New Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Norris Perne & French LLP MI purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor purchased 1,012 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $356,000.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in ACN. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 47.5% during the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in shares of 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 valued at $251,607,000 after acquiring an additional 689,366 shares in the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP bought a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth approximately $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 37,788.5% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after purchasing an additional 509,011 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Eight equities research 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 currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.74.

Accenture Trading Up 1.7 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $380.78 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $238.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. 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 company has a 50-day simple moving average of $358.63 and a 200 day simple moving average of $349.20.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.55%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was 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 in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total value of $1,723,205.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 20,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,446,422.28. This represents a 18.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 16,446 shares of company stock valued at $5,852,848 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.