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

Grimes & Company Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.2% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 65,503 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 768 shares during the period. Grimes & Company Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $23,043,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 78.6% during the 3rd quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,047,000 after acquiring an additional 5,038 shares during the period. MQS Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 70.6% during the 3rd quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,581,000 after buying an additional 14,724 shares during the period. M&G PLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 34.1% during the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $103,361,000 after buying an additional 74,438 shares during the period. Finally, Radnor Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 21.6% in the 3rd quarter. Radnor Capital Management LLC now owns 22,131 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $7,823,000 after purchasing an additional 3,930 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Susquehanna increased their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.74.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 17,332 shares of company stock worth $6,172,719. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

NYSE ACN opened at $362.65 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $357.37 and a 200 day moving average of $347.30. The company has a market capitalization of $226.94 billion, a PE ratio of 30.42, a P/E/G ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared 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 is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

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.