Genesis Private Wealth LLC Acquires Shares of 682 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Genesis Private Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 682 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $240,000.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Simon Quick Advisors LLC grew its position in Accenture by 17.0% in the fourth quarter. Simon Quick Advisors LLC now owns 5,435 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,912,000 after acquiring an additional 790 shares in the last quarter. Beaumont Financial Advisors LLC grew its position in Accenture by 86.1% in the fourth quarter. Beaumont Financial Advisors LLC now owns 1,788 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $629,000 after acquiring an additional 827 shares in the last quarter. MCF Advisors LLC grew its position in Accenture by 10.5% in the fourth quarter. MCF Advisors LLC now owns 905 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $318,000 after acquiring an additional 86 shares in the last quarter. Perfromance Wealth Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 367.6% during the 4th quarter. Perfromance Wealth Partners LLC now owns 7,075 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,489,000 after buying an additional 5,562 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Howard Capital Management Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.6% during the 4th quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 111,819 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $39,337,000 after buying an additional 648 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $356.31 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $222.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.24. 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 plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $357.49 and its 200-day moving average is $346.26.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.66%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently commented on ACN. Piper Sandler increased their target price on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Susquehanna increased their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Barclays raised their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.74.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,412,909.16. The trade was a 40.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. The trade was a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 15,845 shares of company stock valued at $5,645,518 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.