Birch Hill Investment Advisors LLC Increases Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Birch Hill Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.0% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 30,467 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,000 shares during the period. Birch Hill Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $9,507,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $31,000. Finally, Promus Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $314.12 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $306.16 and its 200 day simple moving average is $335.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market cap of $196.74 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.35, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.33. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $275.01 and a 1-year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were given 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 1.88%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the transaction, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This represents a 13.60% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have weighed in on ACN. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on Accenture from $372.00 to $340.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, June 12th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $349.00 to $353.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 26th. Finally, Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.00.

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.