Financial Management Professionals Inc. Acquires 119 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Financial Management Professionals Inc. grew its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.8% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 1,218 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 119 shares during the quarter. Financial Management Professionals Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $428,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture in the third quarter worth $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 607.1% in the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter worth about $39,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $352.33 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $357.59 and its 200 day moving average price is $345.36. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $220.49 billion, a PE ratio of 29.56, a P/E/G ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.68%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its board has authorized a share 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 purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the firm’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 sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 26,125 shares of company stock worth $9,570,260 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.