Cary Street Partners Financial LLC Buys New Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Cary Street Partners Financial LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm acquired 21,486 shares of the information technology services provider's stock, valued at approximately $7,559,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $2,351,683,000. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its stake in 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 4th quarter valued at approximately $666,495,000. Capital Research Global Investors grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB increased its position in 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 purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a "peer perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $390.00 target price for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut their price objective 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. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $377.82.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 9,965 shares in the company, valued at $2,806,442.95. The trade was a 18.65 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 15,041 shares of company stock worth $5,254,956. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $305.49 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The business's fifty day simple moving average is $308.74 and its 200-day simple moving average is $344.61. The company has a market capitalization of $191.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.63, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $275.01 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS 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 business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture's 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.

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