Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Kestra Investment Management LLC

Kestra Investment Management LLC increased its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.1% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 8,066 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 809 shares during the quarter. Kestra Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,837,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Swedbank AB increased its stake in Accenture by 16.6% in 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. AA Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $270,000. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 10.9% in the third quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 202,330 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $71,520,000 after purchasing an additional 19,958 shares in the last quarter. Brown Lisle Cummings Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 2.5% during the third quarter. Brown Lisle Cummings Inc. now owns 23,006 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $8,132,000 after buying an additional 570 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Violich Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 2.8% in the third quarter. Violich Capital Management Inc. now owns 36,977 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $13,071,000 after buying an additional 1,000 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Accenture Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $387.99 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $242.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month 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 company has a 50-day simple moving average of $365.29 and a 200 day simple moving average of $354.45.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced 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 return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $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 sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on ACN. StockNews.com raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

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.