Blueprint Investment Partners LLC Raises Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Blueprint Investment Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 48.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,297 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 752 shares during the period. Blueprint Investment Partners LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $808,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Swedbank AB lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.6% in the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $901,967,000 after purchasing an additional 363,401 shares during the period. Integrated Investment Consultants LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the third quarter worth approximately $377,000. Navellier & Associates Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $216,000. CFS Investment Advisory Services LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 13.9% during the 3rd quarter. CFS Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 1,060 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $375,000 after acquiring an additional 129 shares during the period. Finally, Biltmore Family Office LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $215,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

Shares of ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The business has a fifty day moving average of $359.16 and a 200 day moving average of $357.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $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. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have commented on ACN. Piper Sandler reduced their price target on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. UBS Group reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Guggenheim cut their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.05.

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.