Hirtle Callaghan & Co LLC Increases Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Hirtle Callaghan & Co LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 16.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 1,767 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 255 shares during the quarter. Hirtle Callaghan & Co LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $622,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $305.17 on Monday. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The stock has a market capitalization 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 company has a fifty day moving average of $359.16 and a 200 day moving average of $357.33. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 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 business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm 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 $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on shares of 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, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

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.