Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Announces $1.48 Quarterly Dividend

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 20th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of 1.48 per share by the information technology services provider on Thursday, May 15th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.82%.

Accenture has increased its dividend payment by an average of 14.4% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 20 consecutive years. Accenture has a dividend payout ratio of 42.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Accenture to earn $13.73 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 43.1%.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $324.52 on Thursday. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $203.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.22, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $361.19 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $357.78. 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 data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.84 by ($0.02). Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. On average, analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on ACN. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $384.45.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following 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. In the last three months, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

An institutional investor recently raised its position in Accenture stock. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 36.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,905 shares during the quarter. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,486,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.