Boston Trust Walden Corp Has $215.45 Million Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Boston Trust Walden Corp lowered its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.5% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 612,446 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 2,865 shares during the period. Accenture makes up 1.5% of Boston Trust Walden Corp’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 6th biggest holding. Boston Trust Walden Corp’s holdings in Accenture were worth $215,452,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Financial Life Planners bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $179,000. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC now owns 12,677 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,460,000 after acquiring an additional 62 shares during the period. Brentview Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $4,089,000. Catalina Capital Group LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 4.1% in the fourth quarter. Catalina Capital Group LLC now owns 2,618 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $921,000 after acquiring an additional 104 shares during the period. Finally, S.A. Mason LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 6.8% during the fourth quarter. S.A. Mason LLC now owns 4,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,650,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on ACN. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 13,255 shares of company stock valued at $4,756,101 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Trading Up 1.1 %

ACN opened at $384.88 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $359.56 and a 200 day simple moving average of $350.23. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $240.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.54%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

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.