Peoples Bank KS Acquires Shares of 169 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Peoples Bank KS bought a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm bought 169 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $53,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $2,351,683,000. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 30,256.8% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,421,519 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,067,651,000 after acquiring an additional 3,410,248 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 22.8% during 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 acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $666,495,000. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors boosted its holdings in Accenture by 16.8% in 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 purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction 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 ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Mizuho cut their target price on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Barclays lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 24th. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 price objective (up previously from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price 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. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $382.14.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3%

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $316.71 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $198.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.57, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $302.63 and its 200-day simple moving average is $338.52. 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 released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.77 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.87%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

Accenture 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.