Insider Selling: Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CEO Sells 6,250 Shares of Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $315.91, for a total value of $1,974,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 161,581 shares in the company, valued at $51,045,053.71. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

Jean-Marc Ollagnier also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Friday, January 19th, Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of Accenture stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.77, for a total value of $2,267,312.50.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $0.67 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $314.61. 1,680,672 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,352,313. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $261.68 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $211.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.46, a PEG ratio of 2.97 and a beta of 1.19. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $358.39 and its 200-day moving average price is $342.14.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.11. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. The firm had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $15.85 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.69 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 11th will be given a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.64%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 46.78%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on ACN. BNP Paribas upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $440.00 price target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. Redburn Atlantic lifted their price target on Accenture from $410.00 to $445.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 19th. Guggenheim began coverage on Accenture in a report on Tuesday, March 19th. They set a “buy” rating and a $425.00 price target on the stock. Susquehanna reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $360.00 price target (down previously from $400.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, March 21st. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, March 22nd. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.00.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $1,850,765,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 101,214.0% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 4,040,402 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,078,141,000 after buying an additional 4,036,414 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 14.9% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 16,642,841 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,440,976,000 after purchasing an additional 2,163,582 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 20.2% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,879,123 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,063,048,000 after purchasing an additional 989,157 shares during the period. Finally, DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 100.0% in the 4th quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 1,751,531 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $614,615,000 after purchasing an additional 875,723 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.