Melissa A. Burgum Sells 1,487 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $362.76 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $227.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.43, a P/E/G ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $357.18 and its two-hundred day moving average is $346.75.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors 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 repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.63%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently weighed in on ACN. Piper Sandler increased their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.74.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Evergreen Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 4.2% during the second quarter. Evergreen Capital Management LLC now owns 6,517 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,977,000 after acquiring an additional 263 shares during the last quarter. Resources Management Corp CT ADV raised its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Resources Management Corp CT ADV now owns 50,111 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $15,204,000 after buying an additional 608 shares during the period. Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 3.3% in the second quarter. Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC now owns 4,944 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,500,000 after buying an additional 159 shares during the last quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp boosted its stake in Accenture by 18.7% during the second quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 172,199 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $52,247,000 after buying an additional 27,168 shares during the period. Finally, Fred Alger Management LLC increased its position in Accenture by 2.8% during the second quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC now owns 3,413 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,036,000 after acquiring an additional 94 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.