Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI Boosts Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.6% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 43,265 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 239 shares during the period. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI’s holdings in Accenture were worth $15,294,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vident Advisory LLC increased its position in Accenture by 8.2% during the 1st quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 11,563 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,009,000 after purchasing an additional 874 shares in the last quarter. CreativeOne Wealth LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 7.2% in the 1st quarter. CreativeOne Wealth LLC now owns 4,558 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,580,000 after acquiring an additional 306 shares during the period. Capital Group Private Client Services Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 115.2% in the 1st quarter. Capital Group Private Client Services Inc. now owns 47,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $16,442,000 after acquiring an additional 25,390 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 196.5% during the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 988,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $342,483,000 after purchasing an additional 654,807 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Inc. CA acquired a new position in Accenture in the first quarter valued at $1,063,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Citigroup lifted their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Guggenheim lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Mizuho upped their price objective on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Piper Sandler upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $329.00 to $395.00 in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Up 0.9 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $357.04 on Thursday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $356.03 and its 200 day moving average price is $328.39. The company has a market cap of $223.21 billion, a PE ratio of 31.24, a P/E/G ratio of 3.09 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 data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.71 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.66%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 51.79%.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $369.97, for a total transaction of $1,757,357.50. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 22,976 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,500,430.72. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is owned by 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.