Invesco Ltd. Raises Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 23.5% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,823,228 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 537,223 shares during the quarter. Invesco Ltd.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $880,960,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Accenture by 5.7% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,814,234 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $19,912,594,000 after buying an additional 3,419,577 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors boosted its stake in Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,325,526,000 after buying an additional 1,770,024 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its stake in Accenture by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 8,513,140 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,994,922,000 after buying an additional 181,449 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp boosted its stake in Accenture by 10.7% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 7,582,344 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,667,393,000 after buying an additional 732,769 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its stake in Accenture by 3.5% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,766,369 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,111,378,000 after buying an additional 228,939 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 15,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total transaction of $635,794.95. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 8,109 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,290,387.05. This represents a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 5,454 shares of company stock valued at $1,646,780 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Barclays dropped their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 23rd. Evercore ISI initiated coverage on Accenture in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $330.00 price objective for the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on Accenture in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. They set a “hold” rating and a $290.00 price objective for the company. Mizuho set a $348.00 price objective on Accenture and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. Finally, HSBC began coverage on Accenture in a research note on Monday, July 28th. They set a “reduce” rating and a $240.00 price objective for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $360.21.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $239.07 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $291.16 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $315.60. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The company has a market cap of $149.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 1.29. Accenture PLC has a 12-month low of $238.03 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.32 by $0.17. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.55% and a net margin of 11.61%. The business had revenue of $17.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.26 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.13 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts predict that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.5%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 47.13%.

Accenture Company Profile

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.