Blair William & Co. IL Has $225.14 Million Holdings in 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 lowered its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 1.4% in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm 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 about 0.12% of Accenture worth $225,135,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $31,000. Inlight Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the first quarter valued at $32,000. Capital A Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. Finally, Navigoe LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $37,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded down $6.95 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $240.59. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,308,793 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,469,538. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.46. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $294.23 and a two-hundred day moving average of $317.47. Accenture PLC has a 1-year low of $240.49 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $150.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.16, a P/E/G ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 1.29.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The company had revenue of $17.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.26 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.13 earnings per share. Accenture's revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.5%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is presently 47.13%.

Insider Buying and Selling

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 transaction, the chief operating officer owned 15,882 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total value of $57,315.02. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 5,249 shares in the company, valued at $1,482,002.66. This represents a 3.72% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 5,454 shares of company stock worth $1,646,780 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $349.00 to $353.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Monday, June 16th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on Accenture in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. They set a "hold" rating and a $290.00 price objective on the stock. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Accenture from $355.00 to $325.00 and set a "market perform" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. Benchmark restated a "mixed" rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, June 20th. Finally, Argus set a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $360.21.

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.