Polen Capital Management LLC Trims Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Polen Capital Management LLC trimmed its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 9.6% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 3,526,610 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 375,536 shares during the period. Accenture comprises about 3.4% of Polen Capital Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 14th largest position. Polen Capital Management LLC owned about 0.56% of Accenture worth $1,240,626,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth about $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth about $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on 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 directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on ACN shares. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.52.

Accenture Stock Up 0.4 %

ACN stock opened at $318.28 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $363.01 and a 200-day simple moving average of $358.24. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $199.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.70, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.