Public Sector Pension Investment Board Has $9.65 Million Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Public Sector Pension Investment Board boosted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 12.8% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 27,296 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,100 shares during the quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s holdings in Accenture were worth $9,649,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the business. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the second quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 2nd quarter worth $28,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 607.1% in the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $39,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several analyst reports. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Barclays lifted their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Mizuho boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Robert W. Baird increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Up 0.1 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $362.39 on Friday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $358.68 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $330.84. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $226.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.71, a P/E/G ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.25.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.63%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its board has authorized a share buyback program 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 stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was 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 $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

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.