Sather Financial Group Inc Acquires 3,988 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Sather Financial Group Inc lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.1% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 133,818 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,988 shares during the period. Accenture makes up about 3.0% of Sather Financial Group Inc’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 14th biggest position. Sather Financial Group Inc’s holdings in Accenture were worth $47,302,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of 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 lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 0.7% in the third quarter. BSW Wealth Partners now owns 4,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,441,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Slow Capital Inc. lifted its position in shares of 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 in the last quarter. NBC Securities Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 0.6% in the third quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 5,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,840,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Conscious Wealth Investments LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 0.4% in the third quarter. Conscious Wealth Investments LLC now owns 7,744 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,870,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 20th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $353.57 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $355.55 and a 200-day moving average of $327.26. The stock has a market cap of $221.04 billion, a PE ratio of 30.93, a PEG ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.25. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during 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%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.71 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.67%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 over the last quarter. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Accenture 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.