Running Oak Capital LLC Has $13.66 Million Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

Running Oak Capital LLC boosted its stake in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 12.9% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 43,770 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,996 shares during the period. Running Oak Capital LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $13,658,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Brighton Jones LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 36.2% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,486,000 after purchasing an additional 4,905 shares during the last quarter. Legacy Capital Group California Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 7.3% in the fourth quarter. Legacy Capital Group California Inc. now owns 1,155 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $406,000 after purchasing an additional 79 shares during the last quarter. Centricity Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $63,000. VisionPoint Advisory Group LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $74,000. Finally, Dahring Cusmano LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $283,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction 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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total value of $1,003,982.14. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 17,237 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Mizuho lowered their price target on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on Accenture from $372.00 to $340.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, June 12th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $380.00.

Accenture Trading Down 6.8%

NYSE ACN opened at $285.66 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $178.92 billion, a PE ratio of 22.74, a PEG ratio of 2.88 and a beta of 1.33. The company has a current ratio of 1.48, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture PLC has a 12 month low of $273.19 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $306.98 and a 200-day moving average of $333.68.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. The company 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 firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.13 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.07%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 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.