Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Welch & Forbes LLC

by · The Cerbat Gem

Welch & Forbes LLC raised its stake in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN – Free Report) by 1.1% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 122,763 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,334 shares during the quarter. Welch & Forbes LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $38,307,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Brighton Jones LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 36.2% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,486,000 after buying an additional 4,905 shares in the last quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 47.6% during the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,446 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $861,000 after purchasing an additional 789 shares during the period. Patten & Patten Inc. TN purchased a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $225,000. 1ST Source Bank lifted its position in Accenture by 3.2% in the 4th quarter. 1ST Source Bank now owns 1,554 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $547,000 after buying an additional 48 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cozad Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.2% during the 4th quarter. Cozad Asset Management Inc. now owns 670 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $236,000 after buying an additional 33 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on ACN shares. Guggenheim dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $360.00 to $335.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, June 23rd. Argus set a $370.00 target price on Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. Benchmark restated a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, June 20th. Barclays reduced their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. Finally, BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $325.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, June 23rd. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $370.71.

Read Our Latest Research Report on Accenture

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $276.21 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $307.88 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $326.01. The firm has a market capitalization of $173.00 billion, a PE ratio of 21.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 1.29. Accenture PLC has a 12 month low of $273.19 and a 12 month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.32 by $0.17. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The firm had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.26 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.13 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.14%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 47.13%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 15,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total transaction of $635,794.95. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 8,109 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,290,387.05. This represents a 21.73% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 5,454 shares of company stock valued at $1,646,780 in the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

About Accenture

(Free Report)

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.

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