West Family Investments Inc. Has $623,000 Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

West Family Investments Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 18.2% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 1,763 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 271 shares during the quarter. West Family Investments Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $623,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 78.6% during the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,047,000 after buying an additional 5,038 shares during the last quarter. MQS Management LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the third quarter worth $1,040,000. M&G PLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 34.1% during the third quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $103,361,000 after buying an additional 74,438 shares during the last quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 70.6% in the 3rd quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $12,581,000 after acquiring an additional 14,724 shares in the last quarter. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 18.7% in the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 172,199 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $52,247,000 after acquiring an additional 27,168 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently issued reports on ACN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Bank of America upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Guggenheim upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Piper Sandler Companies restated a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 20th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. The trade was a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $350.00 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $218.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.87, a P/E/G ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.25. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $355.77 and its 200-day moving average price is $327.83.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.69%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s payout ratio is 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

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.