Rock Point Advisors LLC Sells 413 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Rock Point Advisors LLC trimmed its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.4% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 28,413 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 413 shares during the period. Accenture makes up 2.7% of Rock Point Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 12th biggest holding. Rock Point Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $10,043,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 2.0% in the third quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,447 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $511,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. BSW Wealth Partners lifted its position in Accenture by 0.7% in the third quarter. BSW Wealth Partners now owns 4,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,441,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Slow Capital Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Slow Capital Inc. now owns 9,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,205,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. NBC Securities Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.6% in the third quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 5,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,840,000 after buying an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Conscious Wealth Investments LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.4% in the third quarter. Conscious Wealth Investments LLC now owns 7,744 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,870,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Citigroup upped their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. UBS Group lifted their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. TD Cowen raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $1.27 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $362.56. The company had a trading volume of 60,542 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,706,527. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $226.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.61, a PEG ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.25. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $356.57 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $329.61.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The firm 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 previous year, the business earned $2.71 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan 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 plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 12,188 shares in the company, valued at $4,412,909.16. The trade was a 40.03 % 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 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 transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last ninety days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.