Aristotle Capital Management LLC Trims Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Aristotle Capital Management LLC decreased its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 2.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 547,394 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after selling 13,882 shares during the quarter. Aristotle Capital Management LLC owned approximately 0.09% of Accenture worth $192,568,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $2,351,683,000. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its position in shares of Accenture by 22.8% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after buying an additional 2,260,740 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at $666,495,000. Capital Research Global Investors boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 16.8% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $1,324,029,000 after buying an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a "peer perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Barclays decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 24th. UBS Group reduced their price objective on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Mizuho decreased their price target on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada cut their price target 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. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $377.82.

Accenture Trading Up 0.7 %

Shares of ACN stock traded up $2.27 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $306.07. 2,647,747 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,981,587. The firm has a market capitalization of $191.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $275.01 and a 52-week high of $398.35. 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 firm's fifty day moving average price is $306.68 and its 200-day moving average price is $343.86.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company's revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders 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 1.93%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 48.89%.

Insider Activity

In related news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 17,237 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. This represents a 3.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 6,016 shares of company stock valued at $1,694,866. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.