Precedent Wealth Partners LLC Increases Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Precedent Wealth Partners LLC raised its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 21.0% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 5,252 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 912 shares during the period. Precedent Wealth Partners LLC's holdings in Accenture were worth $1,639,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $31,000. Finally, Promus Capital LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of several recent research reports. Wall Street Zen cut Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price target on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Guggenheim dropped their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Mizuho decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Piper Sandler cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $380.00.

Accenture Trading Up 0.8%

Shares of NYSE:ACN traded up $2.41 during midday trading on Monday, reaching $314.12. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,929,569 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,957,915. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $305.50 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $335.40. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $275.01 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $196.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.35, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th were given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. Accenture's payout ratio is 48.89%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the transaction, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares of the company's stock, valued at $4,857,041.86. The trade was a 17.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 9,965 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,806,442.95. The trade was a 18.65% 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 valued at $2,507,366 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.