Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Clarius Group LLC

Clarius Group LLC increased its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 4.0% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 5,576 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 214 shares during the quarter. Clarius Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,962,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in Accenture by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,786,256,000 after purchasing an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in Accenture by 1.2% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after buying an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 44.7% during the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after acquiring an additional 837,677 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s 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 directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 26,125 shares of company stock worth $9,570,260 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several research reports. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Guggenheim lifted their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $352.33 on Friday. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $357.59 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $345.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The company has a market capitalization of $220.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for 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%. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire 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 shares are undervalued.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. 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 payout ratio is 49.66%.

About Accenture

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.