Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Sapient Capital LLC

Sapient Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 14.7% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,758 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 737 shares during the quarter. Sapient Capital LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,026,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 47.5% during the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $668,974,000 after acquiring an additional 28,491 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have commented on ACN shares. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.22.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 0.9 %

ACN stock opened at $390.21 on Wednesday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $362.81 and its 200 day moving average price is $352.74. 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 plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $244.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.74, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm 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 $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.52%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

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.