Rock Point Advisors LLC Has $10.04 Million Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Rock Point Advisors LLC reduced its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.4% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 28,413 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 413 shares during the quarter. Accenture comprises about 2.7% of Rock Point Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 12th biggest position. Rock Point Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $10,043,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL bought a new position in Accenture during the first quarter worth $256,000. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 31.4% in the 1st quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 11,570 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,010,000 after buying an additional 2,768 shares in the last quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 108.0% during 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. Coppell Advisory Solutions Corp. acquired a new position in Accenture during the first quarter worth $1,784,000. Finally, Vista Investment Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.3% in the 1st quarter. Vista Investment Partners LLC now owns 13,130 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,551,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN traded up $1.27 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $362.56. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 60,542 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,706,527. The stock has a market cap of $226.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.61, a P/E/G ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.25. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $356.57 and a 200-day simple moving average of $329.61. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. 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 previous year, the firm earned $2.71 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the company. BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Guggenheim increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

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.