Sapient Capital LLC Grows Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Sapient Capital LLC grew its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 14.7% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 5,758 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 737 shares during the period. Sapient Capital LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,026,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. CX Institutional boosted its stake in Accenture by 432.8% in the 3rd quarter. CX Institutional now owns 18,840 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,660,000 after buying an additional 15,304 shares during the last quarter. Creative Planning lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.5% in the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 247,724 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $87,566,000 after purchasing an additional 12,993 shares in the last quarter. NBC Securities Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 5,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,840,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the period. Birch Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter. Birch Capital Management LLC now owns 18,226 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,443,000 after buying an additional 900 shares during the period. Finally, Swedbank AB raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 16.6% during the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $901,967,000 after buying an additional 363,401 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, 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 three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently commented on ACN shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group raised their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, BNP Paribas downgraded Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of 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 firm has a market capitalization of $244.19 billion, a PE ratio of 32.74, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $362.81 and a 200 day moving average price of $352.74. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.52%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 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.