FIL Ltd Reduces Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

FIL Ltd lowered its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 24.7% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,066,462 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 350,138 shares during the quarter. FIL Ltd’s holdings in Accenture were worth $375,171,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Southeast Asset Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 12.9% during the 4th quarter. Southeast Asset Advisors LLC now owns 1,881 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $662,000 after acquiring an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. Canopy Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 72.6% during the 4th quarter. Canopy Partners LLC now owns 5,095 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,792,000 after buying an additional 2,143 shares during the last quarter. Rathbones Group PLC grew its position in Accenture by 5.2% in the fourth quarter. Rathbones Group PLC now owns 1,078,328 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $379,345,000 after acquiring an additional 53,098 shares during the period. Twin Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Twin Capital Management Inc. now owns 12,602 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,433,000 after acquiring an additional 223 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.9% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,286,005 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $804,194,000 after purchasing an additional 43,217 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of a number of research reports. Barclays dropped their price objective on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 24th. Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Mizuho cut their price objective on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Eight research 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. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $285.01 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $347.92 and its two-hundred day moving average is $354.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $275.01 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $178.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.91, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.