Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Holdings Raised by Florida Financial Advisors LLC

Florida Financial Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 71.2% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,868 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 777 shares during the period. Florida Financial Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $657,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Potentia Wealth bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $369,000. PKS Advisory Services LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth $246,000. Prestige Wealth Management Group LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 4.4% during the fourth quarter. Prestige Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 1,693 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $596,000 after acquiring an additional 72 shares during the period. Signature Estate & Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 8.6% in the fourth quarter. Signature Estate & Investment Advisors LLC now owns 936 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $329,000 after purchasing an additional 74 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Heritage Wealth Management Inc. CA increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 96.5% in the fourth quarter. Heritage Wealth Management Inc. CA now owns 674 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $237,000 after purchasing an additional 331 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have issued reports on the company. 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. Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Guggenheim cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their target price 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 analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.91.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were 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 directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Up 0.6 %

NYSE ACN opened at $307.24 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $358.32 and its 200 day simple moving average is $357.10. 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 plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $192.27 billion, a PE ratio of 25.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.93%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

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.