Boston Common Asset Management LLC Increases Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Boston Common Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 40.7% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 33,745 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 9,757 shares during the quarter. Boston Common Asset Management LLC's holdings in Accenture were worth $10,530,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Park Square Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 9,965 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at $1,512,111.60. This represents a 3.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 in the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have weighed in on ACN. Piper Sandler cut their price target on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Barclays lowered their price objective on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 24th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, Baird R W raised Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $382.14.

Accenture Trading Down 0.3%

Shares of ACN stock traded down $1.02 on Friday, reaching $316.71. 4,012,185 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,988,259. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $275.01 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a market capitalization of $198.36 billion, a PE ratio of 26.57, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The company's fifty day simple moving average is $302.63 and its 200 day simple moving average is $338.74.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture's quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.87%. Accenture's payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

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.