Aviva PLC Increases Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Aviva PLC lifted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 18.4% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 630,036 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 97,722 shares during the period. Accenture comprises approximately 0.6% of Aviva PLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 26th largest holding. Aviva PLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $221,640,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its stake 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 worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Guggenheim cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $285.04 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $349.68 and its 200-day moving average price is $354.42. The company has a market cap of $178.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. 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 plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 48.89%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture 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.