Magnetar Financial LLC Acquires Shares of 6,580 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Magnetar Financial LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor acquired 6,580 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,315,000.

Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,746,455,000 after acquiring an additional 140,726 shares during the last quarter. Amundi raised its holdings in Accenture by 27.9% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,353,909,000 after buying an additional 826,038 shares during the period. Finally, Swedbank AB raised its holdings in Accenture by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after buying an additional 1,212,011 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Down 7.3 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $300.86 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $188.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.24, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $360.05 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $357.39. 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 issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.77 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.97%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday. Finally, Mizuho dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $384.45.

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.