Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Ameriprise Financial Inc.

Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 12.7% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,066,672 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after acquiring an additional 457,723 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. owned about 0.65% of Accenture worth $1,430,563,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $182,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.6% in the fourth quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $230,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the period. Nemes Rush Group LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 7.5% in the 4th quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC now owns 418 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $147,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Neville Rodie & Shaw Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 4.3% in the fourth quarter. Neville Rodie & Shaw Inc. now owns 725 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $255,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. Guggenheim reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Barclays cut their price objective on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 24th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a "hold" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $377.82.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total value of $1,003,982.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 17,237 shares of the company's stock, valued at $4,857,041.86. The trade was a 17.13 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,512,111.60. This represents a 3.05 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 6,016 shares of company stock valued at $1,694,866. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company's stock.

Accenture Trading Up 0.7 %

NYSE ACN traded up $2.27 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $306.07. 2,647,748 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,983,579. The stock has a market cap of $191.70 billion, a PE ratio of 25.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $306.68 and a 200 day moving average price of $343.86. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $275.01 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last posted 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. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business's revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.77 EPS. Analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.93%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

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.