Vanguard Group Inc. Purchases 392,183 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.7% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 392,183 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. owned approximately 9.65% of Accenture worth $21,246,236,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% in the 4th quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $182,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,871,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $230,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Finally, TCW Group Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,065,000 after acquiring an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $359.16 and a 200-day moving average price of $357.24. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 18th. Finally, Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $380.05.

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.