Fairman Group LLC Grows Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Fairman Group LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 26.4% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 105,901 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 22,143 shares during the period. Accenture comprises about 30.7% of Fairman Group LLC’s holdings, making the stock its largest holding. Fairman Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $37,255,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 2.0% in the third quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,447 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $511,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. BSW Wealth Partners grew its position in shares of Accenture by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter. BSW Wealth Partners now owns 4,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,441,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $182,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Slow Capital Inc. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 0.3% in the third quarter. Slow Capital Inc. now owns 9,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,205,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. Finally, Tradition Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,871,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $390.21 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $244.19 billion, a PE ratio of 32.74, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $362.81 and a 200 day simple moving average of $352.74.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.52%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction 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. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.