Ashburton Jersey Ltd Takes $9.19 Million Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Ashburton Jersey Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund acquired 26,122 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $9,189,000. Accenture makes up 4.1% of Ashburton Jersey Ltd’s holdings, making the stock its 7th biggest holding.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA boosted its holdings in Accenture by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after acquiring an additional 158 shares during the period. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 126.8% in the fourth quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $14,090,000 after purchasing an additional 22,391 shares in the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in Accenture by 37.5% in the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,088,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares during the period. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 127.1% during the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $817,000 after buying an additional 1,300 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 26th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Guggenheim reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Down 5.4 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $285.04 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $349.68 and a 200-day moving average of $354.55. The stock has a market cap of $178.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.91, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

Accenture 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.