John F. Walsh Sells 5,000 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.24, for a total value of $1,866,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 17,593 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,566,411.32. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Accenture Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $376.86 on Monday. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The company has a 50 day moving average of $345.48 and a 200-day moving average of $321.59. The firm has a market cap of $236.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.51, a PEG ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.71 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.79 EPS for the current year.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.57%. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s payout ratio is 54.21%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Violich Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 2.8% in the third quarter. Violich Capital Management Inc. now owns 36,977 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $13,071,000 after purchasing an additional 1,000 shares in the last quarter. Brown Lisle Cummings Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 2.5% during the third quarter. Brown Lisle Cummings Inc. now owns 23,006 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $8,132,000 after buying an additional 570 shares during the period. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 10.9% in the third quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 202,330 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $71,520,000 after buying an additional 19,958 shares in the last quarter. Vest Financial LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 16.7% in the third quarter. Vest Financial LLC now owns 83,571 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $29,541,000 after acquiring an additional 11,948 shares during the period. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 18,777 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,637,000 after acquiring an additional 74 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently commented on ACN. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler Companies restated a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, StockNews.com raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $371.18.

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.