Sei Investments Co. Increases Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Sei Investments Co. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 8.0% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 376,869 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after buying an additional 27,911 shares during the period. Sei Investments Co. owned about 0.06% of Accenture worth $132,581,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 5.7% during the 4th quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $182,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. Tradition Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $3,871,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares during the period. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $230,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TCW Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% in the third quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $4,065,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on ACN. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, Piper Sandler reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $378.23.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,484 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. The trade was a 14.91 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock traded up $2.48 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $311.38. The stock had a trading volume of 3,669,622 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,767,183. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $194.86 billion, a PE ratio of 26.12, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 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. The firm's 50 day simple moving average is $357.53 and its 200 day simple moving average is $356.88.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is presently 48.89%.

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.