Heartland Bank & Trust Co Has $329,000 Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Heartland Bank & Trust Co lifted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 18.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 936 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 149 shares during the period. Heartland Bank & Trust Co’s holdings in Accenture were worth $329,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Maverick Capital Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 71.2% in the 2nd quarter. Maverick Capital Ltd. now owns 2,083 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $632,000 after purchasing an additional 866 shares during the period. Ascent Group LLC increased its position in Accenture by 10.6% during the second quarter. Ascent Group LLC now owns 9,461 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,871,000 after buying an additional 907 shares during the last quarter. Annandale Capital LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the second quarter valued at approximately $532,000. Creative Planning boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.7% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 234,731 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $71,220,000 after acquiring an additional 10,559 shares during the period. Finally, Copperwynd Financial LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 30.9% during the 2nd quarter. Copperwynd Financial LLC now owns 2,511 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $830,000 after acquiring an additional 593 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have commented on ACN shares. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. UBS Group lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Barclays increased their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $383.74.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’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 owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 9,196 shares of company stock worth $3,226,918. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $362.65 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $226.94 billion, a PE ratio of 30.42, a P/E/G ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $357.37 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $348.01.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. Equities analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

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.