Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC Has $784.94 Million Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.1% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 2,231,287 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 46,073 shares during the quarter. Accenture accounts for 2.6% of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest position. Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC owned about 0.36% of Accenture worth $784,944,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its position in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently commented on ACN. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their target price on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 21st. Mizuho decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,484 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Trading Down 5.4 %

ACN opened at $285.04 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $349.68 and its two-hundred day moving average is $354.42. The firm has a market cap of $178.53 billion, a PE ratio of 23.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.08%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.

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.