Lee Financial Co Invests $345,000 in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Lee Financial Co acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 980 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $345,000.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Allworth Financial LP lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.2% during the 4th quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 13,733 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,932,000 after purchasing an additional 1,910 shares during the period. Amarillo National Bank acquired a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at $222,000. Principal Securities Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 24.0% during the fourth quarter. Principal Securities Inc. now owns 16,300 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $5,734,000 after acquiring an additional 3,160 shares during the last quarter. Palumbo Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 13.5% in the 4th quarter. Palumbo Wealth Management LLC now owns 8,075 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,841,000 after purchasing an additional 963 shares during the period. Finally, Everhart Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Everhart Financial Group Inc. now owns 3,810 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,340,000 after buying an additional 126 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts recently issued reports on the company. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $387.99 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $365.29 and a 200 day simple moving average of $354.11. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $242.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for 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 company’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 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.