NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC Increases Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC lifted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 71.8% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 8,830 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after acquiring an additional 3,689 shares during the period. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC's holdings in Accenture were worth $2,755,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Liberty Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.8% in the 1st quarter. Liberty Capital Management Inc. now owns 4,023 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $1,255,000 after buying an additional 222 shares during the last quarter. Birch Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Birch Capital Management LLC now owns 19,132 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $5,970,000 after purchasing an additional 502 shares in the last quarter. Rockland Trust Co. increased its stake in Accenture by 1.7% during the 1st quarter. Rockland Trust Co. now owns 69,647 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $21,733,000 after purchasing an additional 1,177 shares in the last quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.0% in the first quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH now owns 130,338 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $40,671,000 after buying an additional 6,203 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Mogy Joel R Investment Counsel Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.9% during the first quarter. Mogy Joel R Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 106,286 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $33,165,000 after buying an additional 3,010 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares in the company, valued at $5,161,650. The trade was a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated 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 owns 5,364 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $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 ninety days, insiders sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on ACN. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $349.00 to $353.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Monday. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Guggenheim decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 26th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $380.00.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN traded up $2.29 during trading on Monday, reaching $314.00. 1,326,775 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,951,881. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $275.01 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $305.50 and a 200 day simple moving average of $335.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The company has a market cap of $196.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.34, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.77 EPS. The business's quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.89%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is 48.89%.

Accenture 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.