Relyea Zuckerberg Hanson LLC Raises Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Relyea Zuckerberg Hanson LLC grew its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 76.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 9,333 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 4,057 shares during the quarter. Relyea Zuckerberg Hanson LLC's holdings in Accenture were worth $3,283,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc increased its holdings in Accenture by 1.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,786,256,000 after purchasing an additional 80,514 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after buying an additional 56,937 shares during the period. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 44.7% in the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $822,238,000 after acquiring an additional 837,677 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company's stock, valued at $7,645,075.84. The trade was a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 26,125 shares of company stock worth $9,570,260 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Barclays increased their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. UBS Group upped their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler Companies reaffirmed a "neutral" rating and set a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. Finally, Bank of America increased their price objective on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $385.04.

Accenture Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of Accenture stock traded up $1.77 on Friday, reaching $352.33. 4,061,199 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,320,392. The company has a market capitalization of $220.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The firm's 50-day moving average is $357.59 and its two-hundred day moving average is $345.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business's quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often an indication that the company's leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture's payout ratio is 49.66%.

About Accenture

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.