Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Position Boosted by Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec

Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec boosted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 18.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 489,830 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 74,825 shares during the quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec’s holdings in Accenture were worth $173,145,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 78.6% during the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,047,000 after purchasing an additional 5,038 shares during the last quarter. MQS Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 70.6% in the 3rd quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $12,581,000 after buying an additional 14,724 shares during the last quarter. M&G PLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 34.1% in the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $103,361,000 after buying an additional 74,438 shares during the period. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp raised its stake in Accenture by 18.7% during the second quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 172,199 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $52,247,000 after acquiring an additional 27,168 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of a number of research reports. BNP Paribas downgraded Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America upped their price objective on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research note on Monday, September 30th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Up 0.1 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $362.39 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $358.68 and a 200-day simple moving average of $330.84. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $226.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.71 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.63%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 51.79%.

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at $3,649,265.25. The trade was a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was 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 in the company, valued at approximately $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 have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last three months. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture 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.