Signature Estate & Investment Advisors LLC Has $329,000 Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Signature Estate & Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 8.6% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 936 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 74 shares during the period. Signature Estate & Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $329,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Accenture by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $21,246,236,000 after buying an additional 392,183 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in 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 worth $1,941,219,000 after purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 2.9% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,746,455,000 after buying an additional 140,726 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Amundi raised its holdings in Accenture by 27.9% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,353,909,000 after buying an additional 826,038 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Mizuho cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, March 20th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $311.38 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $356.77 and a 200-day moving average price of $356.56. The firm has a market cap of $194.86 billion, a PE ratio of 26.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders 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 dividend yield of 1.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.89%.

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.