BIP Wealth LLC Buys Shares of 4,607 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

BIP Wealth LLC acquired a new position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 4,607 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,628,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 2nd quarter worth $26,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. 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 buying an additional 85 shares during the period. Creekmur Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 108.0% in the 1st quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 54 shares during the period. Finally, Tsfg LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 31.1% in the 2nd quarter. Tsfg LLC now owns 135 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $41,000 after buying an additional 32 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $352.79 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $355.77 and a 200 day moving average price of $327.83. The company has a market cap of $220.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.87, a PEG ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.71 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a $1.48 dividend. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 51.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 in the last ninety days. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Susquehanna upped their target price 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 downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Mizuho increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

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.