Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. Buys 113,949 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 4.1% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,919,848 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 113,949 shares during the quarter. Accenture accounts for 1.0% of Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd.’s portfolio, making the stock its 15th largest position. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. owned about 0.47% of Accenture worth $1,033,188,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its stake 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 valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Trading Up 0.8 %

ACN opened at $311.38 on Thursday. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $356.77 and a 200 day moving average of $356.56. The firm has a market cap of $194.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.12, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.90%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Mizuho dropped their price target on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.23.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.