Legal & General Group Plc Sells 1,455,773 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Legal & General Group Plc trimmed its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 23.3% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 4,783,709 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,455,773 shares during the quarter. Accenture comprises 0.4% of Legal & General Group Plc’s portfolio, making the stock its 29th biggest holding. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,682,861,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank bought a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $2,351,683,000. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in shares of Accenture by 22.8% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth approximately $666,495,000. Swedbank AB lifted its stake in Accenture by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Proficio Capital Partners LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 51,837.3% during the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 860,601 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $302,751,000 after purchasing an additional 858,944 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. UBS Group reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Mizuho reduced their price target on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,943,913.48. The trade was a 14.91 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Down 5.4 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $285.04 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $178.53 billion, a PE ratio of 23.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $275.00 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $349.68 and a 200 day moving average price of $354.67. 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, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.77 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.08%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 48.89%.

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.