Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Intech Investment Management LLC

Intech Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 50.3% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 70,187 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 23,484 shares during the period. Intech Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $24,691,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of ACN. State Street Corp raised its stake in Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 378.9% during 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in Accenture by 2.9% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,746,455,000 after purchasing an additional 140,726 shares during the last quarter. Amundi lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 27.9% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,353,909,000 after buying an additional 826,038 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 47.5% during 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. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of 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. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $388.04.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, 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 value of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $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. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $326.25 on Tuesday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $362.51 and its 200 day simple moving average is $358.14. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $204.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.37, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

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.