Ballast Advisors LLC Buys 293 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Ballast Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 5,183 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 293 shares during the quarter. Ballast Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,823,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC now owns 269,782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $94,907,000 after acquiring an additional 7,506 shares in the last quarter. Viawealth LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 14.9% during the 4th quarter. Viawealth LLC now owns 1,274 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $448,000 after purchasing an additional 165 shares during the period. Wilkins Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. Wilkins Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 20,419 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $7,183,000 after purchasing an additional 122 shares in the last quarter. Magnetar Financial LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $2,315,000. Finally, Teacher Retirement System of Texas raised its position in shares of Accenture by 73.2% during the fourth quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 486,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $171,209,000 after buying an additional 205,729 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $300.86 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $360.05 and its 200-day simple moving average is $357.39. 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 plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $188.28 billion, a PE ratio of 25.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS 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 company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.97%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently weighed in on ACN. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 14th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $384.45.

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.