Cornerstone Select Advisors LLC Purchases New Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Cornerstone Select Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 638 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $224,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Neville Rodie & Shaw Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.3% in the fourth quarter. Neville Rodie & Shaw Inc. now owns 725 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $255,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the period. Diversified Trust Co boosted its holdings in Accenture by 71.1% in the 4th quarter. Diversified Trust Co now owns 18,153 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,386,000 after purchasing an additional 7,546 shares during the period. Spartan Planning & Wealth Management purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $419,000. Birch Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Birch Capital Management LLC now owns 18,630 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,554,000 after buying an additional 404 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norway Savings Bank grew its position in Accenture by 9.1% during the fourth quarter. Norway Savings Bank now owns 4,078 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,435,000 after buying an additional 341 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. UBS Group reduced their target price on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $377.82.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. The trade was a 17.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 6,016 shares of company stock worth $1,694,866 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Trading Down 1.1 %

Shares of ACN opened at $304.20 on Wednesday. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $275.01 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $306.68 and its 200-day moving average price is $343.86. The firm has a market capitalization of $190.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.52, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.95%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

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.