Copeland Capital Management LLC Has $10.62 Million Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Copeland Capital Management LLC lowered its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 13.9% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 30,176 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 4,857 shares during the quarter. Copeland Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $10,616,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. State Street Corp grew its position in Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its position in Accenture by 378.9% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB grew its stake in Accenture by 47.5% during the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $668,974,000 after purchasing an additional 28,491 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Eight 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, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $384.88 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market cap of $240.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.29, a PEG ratio of 3.33 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $359.56 and a 200 day moving average price of $350.06. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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 given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.54%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction 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 sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 13,255 shares of company stock valued at $4,756,101 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.