Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. lifted its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 11,844 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 306 shares during the quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $4,167,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth approximately $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 24th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.23.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $304.32 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $354.96 and its 200 day simple moving average is $356.03. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $190.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.53, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. 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 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.95%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio 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.