The Goldman Sachs Group Begins Coverage on Accenture (NYSE:ACN)

The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) in a report released on Monday morning, MarketBeat reports. The firm issued a neutral rating and a $335.00 target price on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on the stock. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday, April 27th. Piper Sandler cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 17th. TD Cowen lowered their price target on Accenture from $294.00 to $293.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, June 21st. Citigroup reduced their price objective on Accenture from $430.00 to $400.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $374.00 to $381.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Friday, March 22nd. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $352.74.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $303.10 on Monday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $300.69 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $336.65. The firm has a market cap of $203.30 billion, a PE ratio of 27.76, a P/E/G ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.21. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $16.47 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.19 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 11.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 11th will be given a $1.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 11th. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 47.25%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total transaction of $1,536,100.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 13,699 shares in the company, valued at $4,208,606.78. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $315.91, for a total value of $1,974,437.50. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 161,581 shares in the company, valued at approximately $51,045,053.71. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total transaction of $1,536,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 13,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,208,606.78. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 20,083 shares of company stock valued at $6,302,285 over the last quarter. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $2,061,490,000. Swedbank AB purchased a new stake in Accenture in the 1st quarter valued at $820,912,000. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 100.0% in the 4th quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 1,751,531 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $614,615,000 after acquiring an additional 875,723 shares in the last quarter. Winslow Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $288,168,000. Finally, Generation Investment Management LLP bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $286,220,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.