Cooper Financial Group Has $582,000 Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Cooper Financial Group grew its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 86.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 769 shares during the quarter. Cooper Financial Group’s holdings in Accenture were worth $582,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 63.2% in the second quarter. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC now owns 12,912 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,918,000 after acquiring an additional 5,000 shares during the last quarter. Greenwich Wealth Management LLC raised its position in Accenture by 4.5% in the 2nd quarter. Greenwich Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,523 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $462,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% during 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 buying an additional 131,544 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in Accenture by 6.1% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,681,940 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $813,743,000 after buying an additional 154,328 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Quantbot Technologies LP acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at $7,775,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently issued reports on ACN. UBS Group raised their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Citigroup raised their target price 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. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Mizuho lifted their target price 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, Bank of America increased their price target on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $385.04.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction 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 represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $349.14 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $218.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.55, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $357.93 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $344.63. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

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.