Royal Capital Wealth Management LLC Cuts Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Royal Capital Wealth Management LLC decreased its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,268 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 150 shares during the period. Royal Capital Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $446,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its position in Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Promus Capital LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently weighed in on ACN shares. Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 21st. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $381.76.

Accenture Stock Up 0.1%

ACN stock opened at $319.70 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $200.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.82, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $275.01 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $302.57 and its 200 day moving average price is $340.82. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.77 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 9,965 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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. Over the last three months, insiders sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366. 0.02% of the stock is currently 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.