Blair William & Co. IL Sells 10,382 Shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

Key Points

• Blair William & Co. IL reduced its stake in Accenture PLC by 1.4%, selling 10,382 shares, and now holds approximately 0.12% of the company worth $225 million.
• Accenture's latest quarterly earnings beat estimates with an EPS of $3.49 and revenue of $17.73 billion, reflecting a 7.7% year-over-year increase.
• The company will pay a quarterly dividend of $1.48 per share on August 15th, representing an annualized yield of 2.3%.

Blair William & Co. IL cut its holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 1.4% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 721,493 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after selling 10,382 shares during the period. Blair William & Co. IL owned approximately 0.12% of Accenture worth $225,135,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $30,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $31,000. Inlight Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the first quarter valued at about $32,000. Capital A Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $34,000. Finally, Navigoe LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $37,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have issued reports on ACN. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $325.00 and set a "market perform" rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $349.00 to $353.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Monday, June 16th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. UBS Group restated a "buy" rating and issued a $395.00 price objective (up previously from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Finally, HSBC started coverage on shares of Accenture in a research note on Monday, July 28th. They issued a "reduce" rating and a $240.00 price target for the company. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $360.21.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related 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 transaction, 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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at 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 transaction, the insider owned 5,249 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,482,002.66. This trade represents a 3.72% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 5,454 shares of company stock worth $1,646,780 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Accenture Trading Down 4.5%

NYSE:ACN opened at $255.18 on Friday. The company's 50 day moving average price is $297.98 and its 200-day moving average price is $319.33. Accenture PLC has a 52 week low of $254.20 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The stock has a market cap of $159.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.32, a PEG ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 1.29.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.32 by $0.17. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The firm had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $17.26 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.13 earnings per share. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast 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 Friday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.3%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is 47.13%.

Accenture Company 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.

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