Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stake Lowered by L. Roy Papp & Associates LLP

L. Roy Papp & Associates LLP lowered its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.7% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 115,218 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 788 shares during the period. Accenture accounts for about 5.0% of L. Roy Papp & Associates LLP’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 3rd biggest holding. L. Roy Papp & Associates LLP’s holdings in Accenture were worth $40,431,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Brave Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 2.8% during the 4th quarter. Brave Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $361,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. KMG Fiduciary Partners LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 4.0% during the 4th quarter. KMG Fiduciary Partners LLC now owns 760 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $267,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Jag Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Jag Capital Management LLC now owns 9,271 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,847,000 after buying an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 712 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $250,000 after buying an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jump Financial LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 3.6% during the 3rd quarter. Jump Financial LLC now owns 917 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $282,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,937,488.01. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,937,488.01. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 3,010 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $371.80, for a total value of $1,119,118.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,193 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,417,957.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 31,000 shares of company stock valued at $11,146,998. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have weighed in on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Accenture from $374.00 to $381.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Wedbush increased their price objective on Accenture from $330.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 14th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on Accenture from $363.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 18th. Finally, Bank of America increased their price objective on Accenture from $379.00 to $419.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.00.

Accenture Stock Up 1.7 %

NYSE ACN traded up $5.67 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $346.61. The stock had a trading volume of 3,614,949 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,935,126. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $261.68 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $217.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.42, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $368.86 and a 200 day simple moving average of $340.42.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $15.85 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. Accenture’s revenue was down .1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.69 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.1 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 11th will be given a dividend of $1.29 per share. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.49%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 46.78%.

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.