Lansforsakringar Fondforvaltning AB publ Makes New Investment in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Lansforsakringar Fondforvaltning AB publ acquired a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 207,299 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $72,926,000. Accenture comprises approximately 0.9% of Lansforsakringar Fondforvaltning AB publ’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 24th biggest holding.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Capstone Triton Financial Group LLC increased its position in Accenture by 43.0% during the 4th quarter. Capstone Triton Financial Group LLC now owns 2,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $961,000 after purchasing an additional 822 shares during the period. TFR Capital LLC. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,792,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $31,000. Menard Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $125,000. Finally, Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH purchased a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $225,217,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently weighed in on ACN. Mizuho lowered their price objective on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Barclays lowered their price target on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 24th. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 price target (up from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $382.14.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total transaction of $643,242.92. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 9,965 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, 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 sale, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,512,111.60. This trade represents a 3.05% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 1.8%

Accenture stock opened at $315.00 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $197.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.43, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The business has a fifty day moving average of $302.05 and a two-hundred day moving average of $339.47. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $275.01 and a twelve month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.77 earnings per share. On average, 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 was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 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.