Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Purchased by Goelzer Investment Management Inc.

Goelzer Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.0% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 7,661 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 75 shares during the quarter. Goelzer Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,695,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% in 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 purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after buying an additional 80,514 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during 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 valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the period. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 44.7% during the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after acquiring an additional 837,677 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 17,332 shares of company stock valued at $6,172,719 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on ACN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. Susquehanna boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given 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 a consensus price target of $383.74.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

ACN opened at $362.65 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $226.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.42, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $357.19 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $346.86. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

About Accenture

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.