Bessemer Group Inc. Sells 31,851 Shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

Bessemer Group Inc. decreased its holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 48.5% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 33,760 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after selling 31,851 shares during the quarter. Bessemer Group Inc.'s holdings in Accenture were worth $10,534,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Capital Research Global Investors raised its holdings in 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 worth $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares in the last quarter. Alteri Wealth LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $321,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 47.6% in the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,446 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $861,000 after purchasing an additional 789 shares in the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% in the first quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 905 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $282,000 after purchasing an additional 347 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $317,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. Guggenheim decreased their price objective on Accenture from $360.00 to $335.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Monday. Barclays reduced their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Monday. 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 report on Monday, March 17th. Argus set a $370.00 price target on Accenture in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on Accenture from $340.00 to $325.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a report on Tuesday. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $370.71.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN traded down $0.82 on Friday, hitting $295.26. 4,159,093 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,943,750. The company's 50 day simple moving average is $307.78 and its 200-day simple moving average is $332.11. The firm has a market cap of $184.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.51, a P/E/G ratio of 2.89 and a beta of 1.33. Accenture PLC has a one year low of $273.19 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 10th. Accenture's payout ratio is 47.13%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 15,882 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $5,161,650. The trade was a 13.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total value of $1,003,982.14. Following the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 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 have sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.