Ninety One UK Ltd Decreases Position in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

Ninety One UK Ltd lessened its holdings in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 5.0% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 254,189 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after selling 13,263 shares during the quarter. Ninety One UK Ltd's holdings in Accenture were worth $79,317,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $30,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $31,000. Inlight Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the first quarter worth approximately $32,000. Capital A Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $34,000. Finally, Mountain Hill Investment Partners Corp. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 15,882 shares of the company's stock, valued at $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the transaction, the general counsel directly owned 17,237 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Down 2.3%

Shares of ACN traded down $6.80 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $289.12. The stock had a trading volume of 3,807,956 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,327,144. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.46. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $309.75 and a 200-day simple moving average of $328.40. The firm has a market capitalization of $181.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.84 and a beta of 1.29. Accenture PLC has a 1-year low of $273.19 and a 1-year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.55% and a net margin of 11.61%. The company had revenue of $17.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.26 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.13 EPS. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.05%. Accenture's payout ratio is 47.13%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently issued reports on ACN. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $390.00 price target for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Guggenheim cut their target price on Accenture from $360.00 to $335.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 23rd. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $370.71.

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.