Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by BNC Wealth Management LLC

BNC Wealth Management LLC decreased its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 4.1% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,326 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 99 shares during the quarter. BNC Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $818,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Intech Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 13.8% in the second quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 41,701 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,652,000 after acquiring an additional 5,045 shares during the period. Callan Capital LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 12.2% in the second quarter. Callan Capital LLC now owns 2,007 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $609,000 after acquiring an additional 218 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 5.5% in the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 51,835 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $15,727,000 after buying an additional 2,695 shares in the last quarter. Boston Research & Management Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 3.4% in the second quarter. Boston Research & Management Inc. now owns 18,402 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $5,583,000 after buying an additional 608 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Transatlantique Private Wealth LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 9.9% in the second quarter. Transatlantique Private Wealth LLC now owns 4,802 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,438,000 after buying an additional 433 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on ACN. 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 research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company 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 for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America boosted their price target on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $352.33 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $357.59 and its 200-day simple moving average is $345.36. The firm has a market cap of $220.49 billion, a PE ratio of 29.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. 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 posted its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current 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 paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its board has initiated a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 26,125 shares of company stock valued at $9,570,260. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.