Blue Trust Inc. Reduces Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Blue Trust Inc. trimmed its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 9.4% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 23,492 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 2,425 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $8,264,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB grew its position in shares of Accenture by 47.5% in the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after buying an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 2,666.5% in the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 715,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $251,607,000 after buying an additional 689,366 shares during the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 37,788.5% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after buying an additional 509,011 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several research reports. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective 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. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, 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 report on Friday, December 6th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Down 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $387.99 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. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $364.78 and a 200 day moving average price of $353.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $242.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

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.