Turtle Creek Wealth Advisors LLC Boosts Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Turtle Creek Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 50.4% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,044 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 350 shares during the period. Turtle Creek Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $369,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the second quarter worth about $26,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after acquiring an additional 85 shares during the period. Creekmur Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 108.0% during the first quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 54 shares during the period. Tsfg LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 31.1% during the second quarter. Tsfg LLC now owns 135 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $41,000 after purchasing an additional 32 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Reston Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at $51,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, TD Cowen raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded down $8.50 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $353.57. 3,624,539 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,730,625. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $221.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.93, a PEG ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.25. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $355.55 and its 200-day moving average price is $327.08.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.71 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.67%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are typically a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total value of $1,899,689.80. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares in the company, valued at $14,490,266.50. This represents a 11.59 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

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.