Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Position Increased by ORG Partners LLC

ORG Partners LLC raised its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 103.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 871 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 442 shares during the period. ORG Partners LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $307,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of ACN. First Hawaiian Bank raised its holdings in Accenture by 14.4% during the 4th quarter. First Hawaiian Bank now owns 2,444 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $860,000 after buying an additional 307 shares during the period. Fulton Bank N.A. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% in the fourth quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. now owns 12,655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,452,000 after acquiring an additional 868 shares in the last quarter. Range Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $612,000. One Wealth Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $771,000. Finally, Norway Savings Bank boosted its stake in Accenture by 9.1% in the 4th quarter. Norway Savings Bank now owns 4,078 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,435,000 after purchasing an additional 341 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $349.93 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $218.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.62, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $357.82 and its 200-day moving average is $343.77.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.74 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have issued reports on the stock. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture 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 owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099. Insiders own 0.02% 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.