Grimes & Company Inc. Decreases Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Grimes & Company Inc. cut its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.6% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 64,735 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,030 shares during the quarter. Grimes & Company Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $22,883,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.1% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,718,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $20,699,110,000 after buying an additional 635,349 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,311,102,000 after purchasing an additional 131,544 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its stake in Accenture by 2.0% in the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,652,537 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,999,056,000 after purchasing an additional 173,107 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after purchasing an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 4.1% in the 1st quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 3,797,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,316,086,000 after purchasing an additional 148,738 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 20,221 shares of company stock valued at $7,572,755. Insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have weighed in on ACN. Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 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 raised their price target for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, 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. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $371.18.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN traded down $3.91 during trading on Thursday, hitting $366.72. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 273,986 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,715,390. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $348.78 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $322.52. The company has a market capitalization of $229.82 billion, a PE ratio of 33.94, a P/E/G ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 1.25. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.71 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase plan 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 plans are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.61%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 54.21%.

Accenture Company 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.