V Square Quantitative Management LLC Has $5.24 Million Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

V Square Quantitative Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.5% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 14,900 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,035 shares during the quarter. Accenture comprises about 0.7% of V Square Quantitative Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 17th largest position. V Square Quantitative Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $5,242,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA grew its position in shares of Accenture by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 78.6% in the 3rd quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,047,000 after purchasing an additional 5,038 shares during the period. MQS Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 70.6% in the 3rd quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,581,000 after purchasing an additional 14,724 shares during the period. Finally, M&G PLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 34.1% in the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $103,361,000 after purchasing an additional 74,438 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. BNP Paribas downgraded Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, UBS Group upped their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock 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’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 0.2 %

ACN opened at $389.71 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $364.15 and its 200 day simple moving average is $353.43. 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 market cap of $243.88 billion, a PE ratio of 32.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.52%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

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.