Strengthening Families & Communities LLC Has $2.76 Million Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Strengthening Families & Communities LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.0% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 7,800 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 512 shares during the quarter. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,757,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board increased its position in Accenture by 19.1% in the 1st quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board now owns 2,097 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $727,000 after buying an additional 336 shares in the last quarter. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 55.0% in the 1st quarter. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,352 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $469,000 after buying an additional 480 shares in the last quarter. Trustmark National Bank Trust Department bought a new stake in Accenture in the 1st quarter valued at about $275,000. Delta Asset Management LLC TN increased its position in Accenture by 0.3% in the 1st quarter. Delta Asset Management LLC TN now owns 38,742 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $13,428,000 after buying an additional 135 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Atlanta Consulting Group Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 1st quarter valued at about $243,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have commented on the company. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Piper Sandler upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $329.00 to $395.00 in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. UBS Group boosted their target price on Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Guggenheim boosted their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $368.23.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. Insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 2.3 %

NYSE:ACN opened at $353.57 on Monday. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $221.04 billion, a PE ratio of 30.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $355.55 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $327.46.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.71 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

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.