Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CFO Sells $1,422,000.00 in Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 4,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.00, for a total value of $1,422,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 42,781 shares in the company, valued at $13,518,796. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website.

Accenture Stock Up 0.3 %

NYSE:ACN opened at $316.88 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $261.68 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $212.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.73, a PEG ratio of 2.98 and a beta of 1.19. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $355.21 and its 200 day moving average price is $341.83.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.11. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. The business had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.85 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.69 EPS. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.09 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 11th will be given a $1.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 46.78%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth about $1,850,765,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 101,214.0% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 4,040,402 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,078,141,000 after acquiring an additional 4,036,414 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley boosted its position in Accenture by 14.9% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 16,642,841 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,440,976,000 after acquiring an additional 2,163,582 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in Accenture by 20.2% during the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,879,123 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,063,048,000 after acquiring an additional 989,157 shares during the period. Finally, DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main boosted its position in Accenture by 100.0% during the 4th quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 1,751,531 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $614,615,000 after acquiring an additional 875,723 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on ACN shares. Mizuho reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $398.00 target price (down from $426.00) on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $375.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. BNP Paribas raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $440.00 price target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. Susquehanna reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $360.00 price target (down from $400.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, March 21st. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised their price target on Accenture from $364.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, March 7th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.00.

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.