Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stake Lifted by Fairman Group LLC

Fairman Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 26.4% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 105,901 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 22,143 shares during the period. Accenture accounts for approximately 30.7% of Fairman Group LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its largest holding. Fairman Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $37,255,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Schear Investment Advisers LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.4% in the fourth quarter. Schear Investment Advisers LLC now owns 3,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,394,000 after buying an additional 166 shares during the period. Portfolio Design Labs LLC increased its position in Accenture by 27.8% during the 4th quarter. Portfolio Design Labs LLC now owns 10,080 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,546,000 after purchasing an additional 2,193 shares during the period. Quent Capital LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 3.6% during the 4th quarter. Quent Capital LLC now owns 2,900 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,020,000 after acquiring an additional 101 shares in the last quarter. Single Point Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,658,000. Finally, Sovran Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $1,009,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of several analyst reports. 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 report on Wednesday, January 8th. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of 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 report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Up 0.9 %

NYSE:ACN opened at $390.21 on Wednesday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $362.81 and its two-hundred day moving average is $352.74. The stock has a market capitalization of $244.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during 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%. Accenture’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 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.52%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 49.66%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value 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 represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by 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.