Webster Bank N. A. Lowers Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Webster Bank N. A. cut its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 16,649 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 194 shares during the period. Webster Bank N. A.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $5,857,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Maverick Capital Ltd. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 71.2% in the 2nd quarter. Maverick Capital Ltd. now owns 2,083 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $632,000 after purchasing an additional 866 shares in the last quarter. Ascent Group LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 10.6% during the second quarter. Ascent Group LLC now owns 9,461 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,871,000 after acquiring an additional 907 shares during the last quarter. Annandale Capital LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the second quarter valued at $532,000. Creative Planning increased its holdings in Accenture by 4.7% in the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 234,731 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $71,220,000 after acquiring an additional 10,559 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Copperwynd Financial LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 30.9% during the 2nd quarter. Copperwynd Financial LLC now owns 2,511 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $830,000 after purchasing an additional 593 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 9,196 shares of company stock valued at $3,226,918. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Barclays boosted their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.74.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

ACN opened at $362.65 on Monday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $226.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.42, a PEG ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $357.37 and its two-hundred day moving average is $348.01. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.63%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

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.