Alerus Financial NA Sells 106 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Alerus Financial NA lessened its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 2,697 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 106 shares during the quarter. Alerus Financial NA’s holdings in Accenture were worth $949,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA lifted its position in Accenture by 6.5% during the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 126.8% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $14,090,000 after acquiring an additional 22,391 shares during the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 37.5% during the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,088,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 127.1% in the 4th quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $817,000 after acquiring an additional 1,300 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Mizuho reduced their target price on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Guggenheim lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Eight research 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 company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.23.

Accenture Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $308.51 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $355.92 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $356.23. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $193.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.88, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.92%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.

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.