Whitener Capital Management Inc. Makes New $209,000 Investment in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Whitener Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 590 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $209,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Prosperitas Financial LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 10.1% during the third quarter. Prosperitas Financial LLC now owns 7,446 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,632,000 after acquiring an additional 680 shares in the last quarter. Confluence Wealth Services Inc. boosted its stake in Accenture by 8.5% during the third quarter. Confluence Wealth Services Inc. now owns 3,462 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,224,000 after acquiring an additional 271 shares in the last quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 1.7% in the third quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC now owns 1,931 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $683,000 after buying an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in Accenture in the third quarter worth about $204,000. Finally, Optas LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 19.3% in the third quarter. Optas LLC now owns 1,365 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $482,000 after buying an additional 221 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. TD Cowen raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $345.67 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $216.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.24, a PEG ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 1.25. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $352.34 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $324.12.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.71 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.71%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a share buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 12,188 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 12,188 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 33,107 shares of company stock worth $12,275,914 over the last three months. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.