Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC Cuts Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC lowered its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 5.3% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 969 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 54 shares during the quarter. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $343,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. L. Roy Papp & Associates LLP lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 0.6% during the third quarter. L. Roy Papp & Associates LLP now owns 111,970 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $39,579,000 after purchasing an additional 707 shares in the last quarter. Motiv8 Investments LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 16.6% in the 3rd quarter. Motiv8 Investments LLC now owns 2,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $859,000 after buying an additional 345 shares in the last quarter. Conscious Wealth Investments LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 0.4% in the 3rd quarter. Conscious Wealth Investments LLC now owns 7,744 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,870,000 after buying an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. OMNI 360 Wealth Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth about $214,000. Finally, J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 41.6% in the third quarter. J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. now owns 12,216 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,318,000 after acquiring an additional 3,586 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $371.18.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $369.97, for a total value of $1,757,357.50. Following the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 22,976 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,500,430.72. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 24,971 shares of company stock valued at $9,330,113 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $360.80 on Monday. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $350.24 and a 200 day simple moving average of $322.93. The firm has a market capitalization of $226.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.64%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 54.21%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

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.