SC&H Financial Advisors Inc. Purchases 657 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

SC&H Financial Advisors Inc. increased its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 67.4% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,632 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 657 shares during the period. SC&H Financial Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $574,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after purchasing an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.5% during the third quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $668,974,000 after buying an additional 28,491 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, UBS Group increased their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3 %

ACN opened at $386.04 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $361.83 and a 200 day moving average of $351.65. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $241.58 billion, a PE ratio of 32.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.53%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

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.