Trust Co of the South Has $1.26 Million Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Trust Co of the South boosted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.8% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,039 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 426 shares during the quarter. Trust Co of the South’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,260,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its stake in Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Park Square Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $31,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently commented on ACN. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price target on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Mizuho cut their price target on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 26th. Finally, Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $382.14.

Accenture Trading Up 0.2%

Shares of ACN stock opened at $316.13 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $198.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.52, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $275.01 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $302.27 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $339.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during 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 company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.87%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 48.89%.

Insider Activity

In other news, 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 sale, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares in the company, valued at $4,857,041.86. The trade was a 17.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 9,965 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. This represents a 18.65% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.