Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $1.48

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 20th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of 1.48 per share by the information technology services provider on Thursday, May 15th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.82%.

Accenture has raised its dividend payment by an average of 14.4% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 20 consecutive years. Accenture has a dividend payout ratio of 42.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Accenture to earn $13.73 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 43.1%.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $324.52 on Thursday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $361.19 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $357.78. The firm has a market capitalization of $203.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.22, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.84 by ($0.02). Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. On average, equities analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

An institutional investor recently raised its position in Accenture stock. Brighton Jones LLC raised its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 36.2% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,905 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,486,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong 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 $384.45.

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.