Root Financial Partners LLC Buys New Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Root Financial Partners LLC bought a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 813 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $286,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vontobel Holding Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 23.1% during the fourth quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 1,132,903 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $398,544,000 after buying an additional 212,249 shares during the last quarter. Bogart Wealth LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 8.2% during the fourth quarter. Bogart Wealth LLC now owns 435 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $153,000 after buying an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. Catalyst Financial Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 9.1% during the fourth quarter. Catalyst Financial Partners LLC now owns 2,660 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $936,000 after buying an additional 221 shares during the last quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 252,437 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $89,913,000 after buying an additional 3,351 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Pathway Financial Advisers LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 3.2% during the fourth quarter. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC now owns 1,685 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $593,000 after buying an additional 52 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price 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. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $387.99 on Friday. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $364.78 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $353.68. The company has a market capitalization of $242.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.55, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The company 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 quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.27 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, 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 completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total transaction of $1,723,205.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 20,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,446,422.28. This represents a 18.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 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.