Unisphere Establishment Takes Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Unisphere Establishment acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 18,700 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $6,578,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA increased its holdings in Accenture by 6.5% during the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $22,314,000 after buying an additional 3,883 shares during the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.4% during the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $812,000 after buying an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC increased its stake in Accenture by 126.8% in the 4th quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $14,090,000 after buying an additional 22,391 shares in the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 37.5% in the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,088,000 after acquiring an additional 843 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 127.1% in the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $817,000 after acquiring an additional 1,300 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $298.55 on Wednesday. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $275.01 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $186.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.05, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $312.46 and its 200-day simple moving average is $346.22.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.98%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. 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 research report on Monday, March 17th. Barclays reduced their target price on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 24th. Piper Sandler reduced their target price on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Mizuho reduced their target price on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a 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 assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $377.82.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 15,041 shares of company stock worth $5,254,956 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.