Willner & Heller LLC Takes Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Willner & Heller LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 624 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $220,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its position in Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth about $39,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Guggenheim raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 17,125 shares of company stock valued at $6,184,820 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 0.5 %

ACN opened at $352.33 on Monday. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $357.59 and its 200 day simple moving average is $345.65. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $220.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.56, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. 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 issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its board has approved 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 repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

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.