First Horizon Advisors Inc. Has $23.35 Million Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 6.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 66,045 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 4,018 shares during the quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc.'s holdings in Accenture were worth $23,346,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 30.6% in the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 68,695 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $23,810,000 after purchasing an additional 16,093 shares during the last quarter. Ossiam grew its position in shares of Accenture by 3.0% during the 1st quarter. Ossiam now owns 15,203 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $5,270,000 after buying an additional 443 shares during the period. Crewe Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 1st quarter valued at about $145,000. Vident Advisory LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 8.2% during the 1st quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 11,563 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $4,009,000 after acquiring an additional 874 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Delap Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the first quarter valued at approximately $274,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Bank of America lifted their price objective on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and raised their target price for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Susquehanna increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised shares of Accenture from a "neutral" rating to an "overweight" rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $329.00 to $395.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 26th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $368.23.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company's stock, valued at $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. This trade represents a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last quarter. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 0.9 %

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $3.09 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $357.04. 1,792,655 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,720,927. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $223.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.21, a P/E/G ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.25. The company's 50-day simple moving average is $355.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $328.19.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.66%. This is a positive change from Accenture's previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its board has authorized a share buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally a sign that the company's board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

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.