Bessemer Group Inc. Trims Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Bessemer Group Inc. reduced its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 65,611 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 63 shares during the quarter. Bessemer Group Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $23,081,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Texas Yale Capital Corp. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Texas Yale Capital Corp. now owns 5,959 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,096,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares in the last quarter. Martingale Asset Management L P boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 18.1% during the 4th quarter. Martingale Asset Management L P now owns 80,136 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,191,000 after acquiring an additional 12,270 shares during the last quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 1,412.3% in the fourth quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 554,533 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $188,391,000 after buying an additional 517,864 shares during the period. Advisory Services Network LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 5.4% during the fourth quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 23,469 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $8,256,000 after purchasing an additional 1,206 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sand Hill Global Advisors LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 0.7% in the 4th quarter. Sand Hill Global Advisors LLC now owns 19,742 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,945,000 after buying an additional 128 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have commented on ACN. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.23.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 5.0 %

NYSE ACN opened at $284.90 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $338.77 and a 200 day moving average price of $352.40. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $275.01 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $178.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.90, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.08%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 48.89%.

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.