Blair William & Co. IL Purchases 3,349 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Blair William & Co. IL boosted its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.5% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 637,853 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 3,349 shares during the period. Blair William & Co. IL’s holdings in Accenture were worth $193,531,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.6% in the fourth quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC now owns 3,646 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,279,000 after purchasing an additional 125 shares in the last quarter. Focus Financial Network Inc. ADV bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $4,594,000. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board raised its position in shares of Accenture by 11.9% during the 1st quarter. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board now owns 36,750 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,393,000 after buying an additional 3,900 shares in the last quarter. Platform Technology Partners grew its position in Accenture by 7.0% in the fourth quarter. Platform Technology Partners now owns 1,996 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $733,000 after acquiring an additional 131 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 13.3% during the first quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 183,446 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $63,584,000 after acquiring an additional 21,516 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently issued reports on ACN. Piper Sandler lowered their price objective on Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 17th. Susquehanna lowered their price target on Accenture from $360.00 to $350.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 21st. Guggenheim reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, May 24th. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $395.00 to $340.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, June 12th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $354.91.

Accenture Trading Down 4.9 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $336.93 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $211.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.85, a P/E/G ratio of 3.82 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $329.94 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $322.59.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The business had revenue of $16.47 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.55 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $3.19 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 11.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 11th were issued a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 11th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.53%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 47.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total value of $927,660.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 40,070 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,390,445.40. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total value of $927,660.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 40,070 shares in the company, valued at $12,390,445.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 3,776 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.05, for a total transaction of $1,166,972.80. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,819 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,652,661.95. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate 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.