MCF Advisors LLC Raises Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

MCF Advisors LLC increased its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.5% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 905 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 86 shares during the quarter. MCF Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $318,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Perfromance Wealth Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 367.6% during the fourth quarter. Perfromance Wealth Partners LLC now owns 7,075 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,489,000 after purchasing an additional 5,562 shares in the last quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 0.6% during the 4th quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 111,819 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $39,337,000 after buying an additional 648 shares during the last quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH grew its position in shares of Accenture by 10.2% in the 4th quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH now owns 124,135 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $43,669,000 after buying an additional 11,482 shares during the last quarter. Mogy Joel R Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Mogy Joel R Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 103,276 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $36,331,000 after acquiring an additional 1,601 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Atomi Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 23.4% during the fourth quarter. Atomi Financial Group Inc. now owns 2,841 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $999,000 after purchasing an additional 539 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently weighed in on ACN shares. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.74.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 15,845 shares of company stock valued at $5,645,518. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Up 1.1 %

ACN opened at $356.31 on Wednesday. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $222.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.89, a PEG ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The business’s fifty day moving average is $357.49 and its two-hundred day moving average is $346.26.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s board 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.