Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Purchased by Harbour Investments Inc.

Harbour Investments Inc. raised its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 14.1% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 1,143 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 141 shares during the quarter. Harbour Investments Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $404,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 1st quarter worth approximately $820,912,000. Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 44.7% during the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after buying an additional 837,677 shares during the period. 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 251.3% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 995,896 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $302,165,000 after buying an additional 712,400 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors lifted its stake in Accenture by 196.5% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 988,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $342,483,000 after acquiring an additional 654,807 shares in the last quarter. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 37,788.5% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after acquiring an additional 509,011 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Piper Sandler Companies reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. BNP Paribas downgraded Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $353.57 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $221.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $355.55 and a 200 day moving average price of $327.08.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.71 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 51.79%.

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

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.24, for a total transaction of $1,866,200.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,593 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,566,411.32. This represents a 22.13 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 over the last ninety days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.