Boston Common Asset Management LLC Grows Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Boston Common Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.3% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 23,988 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,635 shares during the quarter. Boston Common Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $8,439,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% during the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the period. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter worth $39,000. Finally, Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at $51,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Finally, Guggenheim lifted their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Up 0.5 %

ACN opened at $352.33 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. 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 business’s 50-day moving average price is $357.65 and its 200-day moving average price is $345.02. The company has a market cap of $220.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.56, a P/E/G ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 26,125 shares of company stock valued at $9,570,260 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.