Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by WP Advisors LLC

WP Advisors LLC lowered its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 2.4% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 4,673 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 117 shares during the quarter. WP Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,458,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Brighton Jones LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 36.2% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,486,000 after purchasing an additional 4,905 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth about $317,000. F M Investments LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $206,000. Sagespring Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $2,374,000. Finally, Seeds Investor LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Seeds Investor LLC now owns 2,295 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $807,000 after acquiring an additional 38 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 1.1%

NYSE:ACN opened at $239.07 on Monday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $291.16 and a 200 day simple moving average of $315.27. The firm has a market capitalization 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. The company has a quick ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. Accenture PLC has a 1-year low of $238.03 and a 1-year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share (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 26.55% and a net margin of 11.61%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.13 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $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 is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total value of $57,315.02. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 5,249 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,482,002.66. This trade represents a 3.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 5,454 shares of company stock valued at $1,646,780 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several research reports. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on Accenture from $355.00 to $325.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. Piper Sandler dropped their price target on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on Accenture in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. They set a “hold” rating and a $290.00 price target on the stock. Benchmark reissued a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, June 20th. Finally, Mizuho set a $348.00 price target on Accenture and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $360.21.

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.