Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) COO Sells $812,500.00 in Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 15,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

Accenture Trading Down 0.5%

ACN stock opened at $321.04 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $201.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.93, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The business’s 50-day moving average is $303.05 and its 200 day moving average is $341.80. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $275.01 and a 12-month 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.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.84%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA increased its position in shares of Accenture by 6.5% during the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after acquiring an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.4% during the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the period. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in Accenture by 37.5% in the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,088,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares during the period. SteelPeak Wealth LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 127.1% in the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $817,000 after purchasing an additional 1,300 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Barclays decreased their price objective on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 24th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 26th. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $377.82.

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.