Whittier Trust Co. Sells 954 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Whittier Trust Co. decreased its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 4.0% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 22,786 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 954 shares during the quarter. Whittier Trust Co.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $8,016,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $34,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Piper Sandler reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 14th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $384.45.

Accenture Trading Down 7.3 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $300.86 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $188.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $360.05 and a 200 day simple moving average of $357.39. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) 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 business 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 business posted $2.77 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.97%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

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.