Principal Street Partners LLC Decreases Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Principal Street Partners LLC lowered its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 47.8% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 2,090 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,916 shares during the period. Principal Street Partners LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $735,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Ameritas Advisory Services LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 11.7% in the 4th quarter. Ameritas Advisory Services LLC now owns 2,576 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $906,000 after purchasing an additional 269 shares during the last quarter. Artemis Investment Management LLP lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 21.4% in the fourth quarter. Artemis Investment Management LLP now owns 9,242 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,251,000 after buying an additional 1,630 shares in the last quarter. Eldred Rock Partners LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Eldred Rock Partners LLC now owns 29,980 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $10,555,000 after acquiring an additional 113 shares during the last quarter. LVW Advisors LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 7.5% during the 4th quarter. LVW Advisors LLC now owns 941 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $331,000 after acquiring an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Diversify Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 46.4% in the 4th quarter. Diversify Wealth Management LLC now owns 15,022 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $5,255,000 after acquiring an additional 4,764 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $319.16 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $275.01 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. 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 company has a 50 day moving average price of $302.50 and a 200 day moving average price of $340.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $199.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.78, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.77 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.85%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. This represents a 3.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total value of $1,003,982.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. This trade represents a 17.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $381.76.

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.