Kentucky Retirement Systems Insurance Trust Fund Reduces Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Kentucky Retirement Systems Insurance Trust Fund reduced its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 8.5% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 18,546 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,733 shares during the quarter. Kentucky Retirement Systems Insurance Trust Fund’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,556,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,447 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $511,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. BSW Wealth Partners increased its holdings in Accenture by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter. BSW Wealth Partners now owns 4,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,441,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Slow Capital Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Slow Capital Inc. now owns 9,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,205,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. NBC Securities Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.6% in the third quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 5,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,840,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Conscious Wealth Investments LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.4% in the third quarter. Conscious Wealth Investments LLC now owns 7,744 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,870,000 after buying an additional 31 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of several research reports. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. BNP Paribas downgraded Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $353.57 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $221.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $355.55 and a 200 day moving average price of $327.08. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.71 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared 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 an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.