Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC Acquires 259 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC grew its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.9% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 13,894 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 259 shares during the quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $4,970,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of ACN. 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 buying an additional 471,792 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the third 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 during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in Accenture by 1.2% in the 3rd 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 during the last quarter. Swedbank AB grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 47.5% during the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.5% in the third quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $668,974,000 after purchasing an additional 28,491 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. StockNews.com raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Piper Sandler upped 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. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Up 1.1 %

ACN stock opened at $384.88 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $240.86 billion, a PE ratio of 32.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.33 and a beta of 1.24. 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 plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $359.04 and a 200 day simple moving average of $349.42.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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 $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Insider Activity

In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total transaction of $1,723,205.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 20,526 shares in the company, valued at $7,446,422.28. This trade represents a 18.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 16,446 shares of company stock worth $5,852,848. Corporate insiders own 0.02% 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.