Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. Trims Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. reduced its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.7% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 14,588 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 406 shares during the quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $5,132,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth approximately $34,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. Piper Sandler lowered their price target on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. UBS Group cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.05.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $305.17 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.60, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s fifty day moving average is $359.16 and its 200 day moving average is $357.13. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. Accenture’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. Research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

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.