Petredis Investment Advisors LLC Acquires 127 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Petredis Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.6% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 7,861 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 127 shares during the quarter. Petredis Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,453,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $21,246,236,000 after buying an additional 392,183 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,750,021,000 after buying an additional 136,665 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its position in shares of Accenture by 16.8% during the 4th 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 acquiring an additional 1,770,024 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its position in Accenture by 22.8% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,283,225,000 after buying an additional 2,260,740 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors raised its stake in Accenture by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 8,513,140 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,994,922,000 after acquiring an additional 181,449 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have commented on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on shares of Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 26th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 target price (up previously from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $382.14.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $316.72 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $198.37 billion, a PE ratio of 26.57, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.33. The business has a 50 day moving average of $303.16 and a 200 day moving average of $336.65. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $275.01 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,161,650. The trade was a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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 stock was 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. This represents a 3.05% 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 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company 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.