Associated Banc Corp Raises Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Associated Banc Corp grew its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 13.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,341 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 161 shares during the period. Associated Banc Corp’s holdings in Accenture were worth $472,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. HMV Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $817,000. Brown Miller Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 7.2% in the 4th quarter. Brown Miller Wealth Management LLC now owns 8,581 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,019,000 after acquiring an additional 578 shares during the last quarter. Sienna Gestion lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.6% in the 4th quarter. Sienna Gestion now owns 69,224 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $24,349,000 after acquiring an additional 3,018 shares during the last quarter. Carret Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 28.8% in the 4th quarter. Carret Asset Management LLC now owns 3,645 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,282,000 after acquiring an additional 814 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Intact Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 691.1% in the 4th quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 31,250 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $10,993,000 after acquiring an additional 27,300 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.52.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $318.28 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $363.01 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $358.10. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $199.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.70, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.