Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC Has $784.94 Million Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC lifted its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.1% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 2,231,287 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 46,073 shares during the period. Accenture accounts for approximately 2.6% of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 11th largest holding. Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $784,944,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Dynamic Technology Lab Private Ltd bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $947,000. Aviva PLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 18.4% in the 4th quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 630,036 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $221,640,000 after purchasing an additional 97,722 shares during the last quarter. KCM Investment Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. KCM Investment Advisors LLC now owns 26,551 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,340,000 after purchasing an additional 174 shares during the period. Prudential PLC raised its stake in Accenture by 23.4% in the fourth quarter. Prudential PLC now owns 44,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $15,773,000 after buying an additional 8,514 shares during the period. Finally, Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC now owns 2,904 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,022,000 after buying an additional 32 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Barclays decreased their target price on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 24th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective 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. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 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. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Down 5.4 %

ACN stock opened at $285.04 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $178.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. 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 plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $349.68 and a 200-day moving average price of $354.42.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by 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.