Westbourne Investment Advisors Inc. Purchases 572 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Westbourne Investment Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.2% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 18,623 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 572 shares during the period. Accenture accounts for 2.2% of Westbourne Investment Advisors Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 16th biggest holding. Westbourne Investment Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,551,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Marcum Wealth LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 12.0% in the 3rd quarter. Marcum Wealth LLC now owns 2,236 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $790,000 after acquiring an additional 239 shares during the last quarter. Wedmont Private Capital grew its holdings in Accenture by 31.3% during the 3rd quarter. Wedmont Private Capital now owns 4,389 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,566,000 after purchasing an additional 1,047 shares during the last quarter. Cypress Wealth Services LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.8% in the third quarter. Cypress Wealth Services LLC now owns 1,192 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $421,000 after buying an additional 33 shares during the period. Albion Financial Group UT boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.5% during the third quarter. Albion Financial Group UT now owns 48,946 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $17,302,000 after purchasing an additional 253 shares during the period. Finally, Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC grew its stake in Accenture by 641.4% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 17,660 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,242,000 after acquiring an additional 15,278 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of several research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3 %

ACN stock opened at $386.04 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $241.58 billion, a PE ratio of 32.39, a PEG ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. 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 50 day moving average price is $361.83 and its 200-day moving average price is $351.65.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed 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 1.53%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

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.