Burney Co. Has $7.37 Million Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Burney Co. grew its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.2% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 20,953 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,414 shares during the period. Burney Co.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $7,371,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $39,000. Finally, Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth about $51,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Up 1.3 %

ACN stock opened at $353.50 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $221.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company’s 50 day moving average is $357.98 and its 200 day moving average is $344.94. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51.

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

Accenture announced that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.67%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Mizuho raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Bank of America boosted their price objective on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $385.04.

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.