Natixis Advisors LLC Grows Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Natixis Advisors LLC raised its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.6% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 685,909 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 11,111 shares during the quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $241,296,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Swedbank AB grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.6% in the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $901,967,000 after buying an additional 363,401 shares in the last quarter. Entropy Technologies LP acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $745,000. Harbour Investments Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 14.1% during the 3rd quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. now owns 1,143 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $404,000 after purchasing an additional 141 shares in the last quarter. FUKOKU MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE Co grew its stake in Accenture by 35.6% during the 3rd quarter. FUKOKU MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE Co now owns 3,349 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,184,000 after purchasing an additional 880 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc grew its stake in Accenture by 8.1% during the 3rd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 111,561 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $39,411,000 after purchasing an additional 8,338 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have recently commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. UBS Group lifted their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.52.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of ACN opened at $318.28 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. 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 $199.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.70, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $363.01 and its 200 day moving average price is $357.97.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Company 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.