Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Purchased by Peoples Financial Services CORP.

Peoples Financial Services CORP. boosted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 30.7% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 894 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 210 shares during the quarter. Peoples Financial Services CORP.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $314,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 78.6% in the 3rd quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,047,000 after buying an additional 5,038 shares in the last quarter. MQS Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 70.6% during 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 purchasing an additional 14,724 shares during the period. M&G PLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 34.1% during the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $103,361,000 after purchasing an additional 74,438 shares during the period. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 18.7% during the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 172,199 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $52,247,000 after purchasing an additional 27,168 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. UBS Group lifted their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Guggenheim lifted their price target on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. 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 MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $385.04.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $348.34 on Wednesday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $357.98 and its 200-day simple moving average is $344.94. The stock has a market capitalization of $217.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.48, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared 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. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes 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 leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.24, for a total transaction of $1,866,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,593 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,566,411.32. This trade represents a 22.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate 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.