Accenture PLC (ACN) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $1.48 on August 15th

Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, June 20th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, July 10th will be given a dividend of 1.48 per share by the information technology services provider on Friday, August 15th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.07%.

Accenture has a payout ratio of 43.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Accenture to earn $13.73 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 43.1%.

Accenture Stock Down 6.8%

ACN stock opened at $285.66 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $306.98 and its 200 day simple moving average is $333.68. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $273.19 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a current ratio of 1.48. The company has a market cap of $178.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.88 and a beta of 1.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. The firm had revenue of $17.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.26 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.49% and a net margin of 11.43%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.13 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently commented on ACN. Guggenheim lowered their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Wall Street Zen downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Royal Bank Of Canada decreased their price target 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, Benchmark reaffirmed a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $380.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. This trade represents a 3.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 9,965 shares in the company, valued at $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Accenture stock. Brighton Jones LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 36.2% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,905 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,486,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.