Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Holdings Lifted by Intact Investment Management Inc.

Intact Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 691.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 31,250 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 27,300 shares during the quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $10,993,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter valued at $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of a number of research reports. Stifel Nicolaus reduced 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. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $388.96.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $316.48 on Friday. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $198.05 billion, a PE ratio of 26.55, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $363.72 and a 200 day simple moving average of $358.10.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

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.