Caisse Des Depots ET Consignations Makes New $42.61 Million Investment in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Caisse Des Depots ET Consignations acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 121,131 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $42,613,000. Accenture accounts for approximately 2.1% of Caisse Des Depots ET Consignations’ holdings, making the stock its 12th biggest holding.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $21,246,236,000 after acquiring an additional 392,183 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of 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 during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the 3rd 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 2.9% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,746,455,000 after buying an additional 140,726 shares during the period. Finally, Amundi increased its holdings in Accenture by 27.9% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,353,909,000 after buying an additional 826,038 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. UBS Group lowered their price target on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Mizuho dropped their target price on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.23.

Accenture Trading Up 0.8 %

NYSE:ACN opened at $311.38 on Thursday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $356.77 and its two-hundred day moving average is $356.56. 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 $194.86 billion, a PE ratio of 26.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.90%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,484 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. The trade was a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.