Cooper Creek Partners Management LLC Takes Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Cooper Creek Partners Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 90,000 shares of the information technology services provider's stock, valued at approximately $31,661,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Advisors Capital Management LLC increased its position in Accenture by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Advisors Capital Management LLC now owns 123,877 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $43,579,000 after buying an additional 802 shares during the period. Seeds Investor LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Seeds Investor LLC now owns 2,295 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $807,000 after buying an additional 38 shares in the last quarter. Sagespring Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $2,374,000. Nicolet Bankshares Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 108.5% during the 4th quarter. Nicolet Bankshares Inc. now owns 2,629 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $925,000 after purchasing an additional 1,368 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. increased its position in Accenture by 12.8% during the 4th quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 453,761 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $159,624,000 after purchasing an additional 51,351 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,778 shares of company stock worth $8,408,087 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on ACN. UBS Group dropped their price target on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 26th. Piper Sandler dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a "hold" rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $377.82.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of Accenture stock traded down $2.96 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $282.28. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,320,335 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,007,661. The stock has a market cap of $176.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.68, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $328.38 and a 200-day moving average price of $350.21. Accenture plc has a one year low of $275.01 and a one year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly 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 firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture's quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.77 earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.10%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.