Belmont Capital LLC Acquires New Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Key Points

• Belmont Capital LLC acquired 1,414 shares of Accenture PLC, totaling about $441,000, marking a new investment in the company.
• CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares at an average price of $282.34, reducing his ownership by 17.97%, while CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares, leading to a 21.73% decrease in her position.
• Accenture's recent quarterly earnings exceeded expectations, reporting an EPS of $3.49 against a forecast of $3.32, with quarterly revenue rising 7.7% year-over-year.

Belmont Capital LLC bought a new stake in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 1,414 shares of the information technology services provider's stock, valued at approximately $441,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Visionary Wealth Advisors lifted its stake in Accenture by 3.5% in the fourth quarter. Visionary Wealth Advisors now owns 778 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $274,000 after purchasing an additional 26 shares during the last quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP lifted its stake in Accenture by 3.6% in the fourth quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP now owns 782 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $292,000 after purchasing an additional 27 shares during the last quarter. Sentinus LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 4.2% in the fourth quarter. Sentinus LLC now owns 763 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $268,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. Stonebrook Private Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 3.1% in the fourth quarter. Stonebrook Private Inc. now owns 1,103 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $388,000 after purchasing an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Viawealth LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 2.6% in the first quarter. Viawealth LLC now owns 1,307 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $408,000 after purchasing an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Guggenheim lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $360.00 to $335.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 23rd. HSBC initiated coverage on shares of Accenture in a research note on Monday, July 28th. They set a "reduce" rating and a $240.00 price objective for the company. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Accenture to a "moderate sell" rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Evercore ISI initiated coverage on shares of Accenture in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. They set an "outperform" rating and a $330.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on shares of Accenture in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. They set a "hold" rating and a $290.00 price objective for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have given a Buy rating, nine have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $353.76.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $141,170.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,283 shares in the company, valued at $644,582.22. This represents a 17.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $57,315.02. Following the sale, the insider owned 5,249 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,482,002.66. The trade was a 3.72% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 2,954 shares of company stock worth $834,280 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 0.7%

ACN traded up $1.65 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $254.59. The company's stock had a trading volume of 4,235,857 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,641,824. The firm has a market capitalization of $159.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.27, a PEG ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. Accenture PLC has a 1 year low of $236.67 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The stock's 50-day moving average is $268.80 and its 200-day moving average is $297.37.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.32 by $0.17. The business had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $17.26 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The business's revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.13 earnings per share. Accenture has set its Q4 2025 guidance at EPS. FY 2025 guidance at 12.770-12.890 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 10th were issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.3%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is presently 47.13%.

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.