MetLife Investment Management LLC Decreases Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

MetLife Investment Management LLC lowered its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.9% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 162,900 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 4,783 shares during the quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $57,582,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Creekmur Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 108.0% during the first quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 54 shares in the last quarter. XML Financial LLC increased its position in Accenture by 1.5% during the 1st quarter. XML Financial LLC now owns 3,253 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,127,000 after purchasing an additional 47 shares during the period. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 1st quarter worth approximately $179,000. Advisory Resource Group lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 15.4% in the 1st quarter. Advisory Resource Group now owns 2,330 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $808,000 after buying an additional 311 shares during the period. Finally, Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI grew its holdings in Accenture by 8.1% during the first quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 38,914 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $13,488,000 after acquiring an additional 2,924 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have commented on ACN shares. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays lifted their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Piper Sandler raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $329.00 to $395.00 in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $364.76 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $357.09 and a 200-day simple moving average of $330.01. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $228.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.71 earnings per share. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.62%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

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.