Accenture plc Plans Quarterly Dividend of $1.48 (NYSE:ACN)

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 20th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of 1.48 per share by the information technology services provider on Thursday, May 15th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th.

Accenture has raised its dividend payment by an average of 14.4% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 20 consecutive years. Accenture has a dividend payout ratio of 42.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Accenture to earn $13.73 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 43.1%.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $305.17 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $359.16 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $357.13. The company has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

An institutional investor recently raised its position in Accenture stock. Brighton Jones LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 36.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,905 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,486,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Mizuho cut their price objective on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.05.

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.