Bank of Hawaii Sells 283 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Bank of Hawaii cut its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 17.2% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 1,364 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 283 shares during the quarter. Bank of Hawaii’s holdings in Accenture were worth $482,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Swedbank AB bought a new stake in Accenture during the 1st quarter valued at $820,912,000. Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 44.7% in the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after acquiring an additional 837,677 shares during the period. 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its holdings in Accenture by 251.3% during the 2nd quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 995,896 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $302,165,000 after acquiring an additional 712,400 shares in the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in Accenture by 37,788.5% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after purchasing an additional 509,011 shares during the period. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $125,126,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Mizuho lifted their target price on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $361.29 on Tuesday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $356.57 and a 200 day moving average of $329.61. The company has a market capitalization of $225.86 billion, a PE ratio of 31.61, a P/E/G ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.25. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.71 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a $1.48 dividend. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.64%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 51.79%.

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.