Adell Harriman & Carpenter Inc. Increases Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Adell Harriman & Carpenter Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.4% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 1,484 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 49 shares during the period. Adell Harriman & Carpenter Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $522,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Banque Pictet & Cie SA increased its position in shares of Accenture by 48.7% during the fourth quarter. Banque Pictet & Cie SA now owns 45,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $16,165,000 after purchasing an additional 15,054 shares in the last quarter. W.H. Cornerstone Investments Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 32.2% during the 4th quarter. W.H. Cornerstone Investments Inc. now owns 2,138 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $752,000 after acquiring an additional 521 shares in the last quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 7.5% in the 4th quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 14,900 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $5,242,000 after acquiring an additional 1,035 shares during the last quarter. DT Investment Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.1% during the 4th quarter. DT Investment Partners LLC now owns 3,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,079,000 after purchasing an additional 121 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Root Financial Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $286,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. UBS Group increased their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight equities research 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.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Trading Down 0.4 %

NYSE:ACN opened at $387.99 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $364.78 and its 200-day simple moving average is $353.68. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $242.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.55, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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 a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.