MFA Wealth Services Takes Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

MFA Wealth Services purchased a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 673 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $237,000.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. State Street Corp raised its stake in 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 worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its position 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 valued at $1,786,256,000 after buying an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its stake 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 valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 1.2% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after buying an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 44.7% in the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $822,238,000 after acquiring an additional 837,677 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $362.76 on Friday. 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 plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $357.18 and its 200 day simple moving average is $346.75. The stock has a market capitalization of $227.01 billion, a PE ratio of 30.43, a PEG ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently issued reports on ACN. Guggenheim increased their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. TD Cowen raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research note on Monday, September 30th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Piper Sandler lifted their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.74.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other 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 transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. The trade was a 40.03 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 17,332 shares of company stock valued at $6,172,719. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.