Cerity Partners LLC Has $103.52 Million Stock Position in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

Cerity Partners LLC grew its stake in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 14.0% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 331,745 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after acquiring an additional 40,802 shares during the period. Cerity Partners LLC owned 0.05% of Accenture worth $103,518,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $30,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth about $31,000. Inlight Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the 1st quarter valued at about $32,000. Capital A Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. Finally, Mountain Hill Investment Partners Corp. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth approximately $35,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on ACN. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $340.00 to $325.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. Argus set a $370.00 price objective on Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. Mizuho set a $348.00 target price on Accenture and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. UBS Group restated a "buy" rating and set a $395.00 target price (up from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Finally, Barclays cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $370.71.

Accenture Stock Down 2.5%

NYSE:ACN traded down $7.35 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $281.01. 5,075,765 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,924,704. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.46. Accenture PLC has a twelve month low of $273.19 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $176.00 billion, a PE ratio of 22.37, a PEG ratio of 2.71 and a beta of 1.29. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $309.49 and a 200 day moving average of $327.92.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly 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. 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 analyst estimates of $17.26 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.13 EPS. The company's revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.11%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 10th. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 47.13%.

Insider Activity

In related news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 15,882 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.