GSA Capital Partners LLP Boosts Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

GSA Capital Partners LLP boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 94.3% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 11,393 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 5,530 shares during the quarter. Accenture accounts for about 0.3% of GSA Capital Partners LLP’s portfolio, making the stock its 8th largest position. GSA Capital Partners LLP’s holdings in Accenture were worth $4,027,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Atomi Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture by 30.6% during the 1st quarter. Atomi Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,262 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $438,000 after acquiring an additional 296 shares during the last quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 4.0% in the 1st quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC now owns 11,341 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,931,000 after purchasing an additional 437 shares during the period. Rogco LP lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 6.4% in the 1st quarter. Rogco LP now owns 1,633 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $566,000 after purchasing an additional 98 shares during the period. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 6.5% in the 1st quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC now owns 1,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $373,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares during the period. Finally, State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 3.9% in the 1st quarter. State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System now owns 688,131 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $238,513,000 after purchasing an additional 25,867 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, Guggenheim boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $357.30 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $223.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.26, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $353.64 and a 200-day moving average price of $325.46. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.66%. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

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.