Telos Capital Management Inc. Purchases 283 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Telos Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 7,664 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 283 shares during the period. Telos Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,696,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 4.5% during the fourth quarter. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 21,213 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $7,463,000 after buying an additional 906 shares during the last quarter. Adero Partners LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 10.3% during the fourth quarter. Adero Partners LLC now owns 1,341 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $472,000 after buying an additional 125 shares during the last quarter. YANKCOM Partnership bought a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $353,000. Bleakley Financial Group LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC now owns 18,264 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,425,000 after buying an additional 346 shares during the last quarter. Finally, NovaPoint Capital LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. NovaPoint Capital LLC now owns 13,466 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,737,000 after purchasing an additional 363 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’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 completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group lifted their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $386.71 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $361.34 and a 200 day simple moving average of $351.40. The company has a market capitalization of $242.00 billion, a PE ratio of 32.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. 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 released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. Research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.53%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 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.