Banque de Luxembourg S.A. Makes New Investment in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Banque de Luxembourg S.A. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm acquired 40,523 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $14,313,000. Accenture accounts for approximately 7.6% of Banque de Luxembourg S.A.’s holdings, making the stock its 4th biggest holding.

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

Accenture Trading Up 1.7 %

NYSE ACN opened at $305.49 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $191.34 billion, a PE ratio of 25.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $275.01 and a 52 week 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 moving average price of $308.74 and a 200 day moving average price of $344.83.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.89%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently weighed in on ACN. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Morgan Stanley dropped 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 note on Monday, March 17th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. 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 report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Guggenheim decreased their target price on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Eight investment 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 company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $377.82.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the transaction, 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 15,041 shares of company stock valued at $5,254,956. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.