Biltmore Family Office LLC Invests $215,000 in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Biltmore Family Office LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 608 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $215,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 2nd quarter worth $26,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 2nd quarter worth $28,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Creekmur Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 108.0% in the 1st quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 54 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $358.66 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $356.42 and a 200 day moving average price of $328.98. The company has a market cap of $224.22 billion, a PE ratio of 31.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.25. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.71 earnings per share. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total value of $1,899,689.80. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This trade represents a 11.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.