Nicolet Bankshares Inc. Has $925,000 Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Nicolet Bankshares Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 108.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,629 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,368 shares during the period. Nicolet Bankshares Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $925,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 5.7% during the fourth 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 during the period. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its position 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 worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.6% in the fourth quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $230,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 7.5% during the 4th quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC now owns 418 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $147,000 after buying an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Neville Rodie & Shaw Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.3% in the 4th quarter. Neville Rodie & Shaw Inc. now owns 725 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $255,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently commented on ACN. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Guggenheim cut their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $283.54 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $275.01 and a 52 week 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 50 day moving average price of $336.60 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $352.03. The firm has a market capitalization of $177.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.79, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. 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. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.09%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.