Accenture plc (ACN) To Go Ex-Dividend on April 10th

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 20th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of 1.48 per share by the information technology services provider on Thursday, May 15th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th.

Accenture has increased its dividend payment by an average of 14.4% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 20 consecutive years. Accenture has a dividend payout ratio of 42.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Accenture to earn $13.73 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 43.1%.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $305.17 on Friday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $359.16 and its 200-day simple moving average is $357.13. The company has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.77 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have issued reports on the stock. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. UBS Group cut their price objective on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. 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. Finally, Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value 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. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, 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. In the last three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Accenture stock. Brighton Jones LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 36.2% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,905 shares during the quarter. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,486,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.