Trust Co. of Toledo NA OH Grows Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Trust Co. of Toledo NA OH grew its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.1% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 4,220 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 420 shares during the quarter. Trust Co. of Toledo NA OH’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,485,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 607.1% during the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after acquiring an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Finally, Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $51,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN traded down $0.52 on Monday, hitting $349.27. The company had a trading volume of 388,673 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,379,740. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $357.82 and a 200-day moving average price of $344.30. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $218.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.56, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.27 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. UBS Group upped their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Piper Sandler increased their target price on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, TD Cowen raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, 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 legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.