Baker Ellis Asset Management LLC Increases Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Baker Ellis Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 28.8% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 760 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 170 shares during the period. Baker Ellis Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $263,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Grimes & Company Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 2.1% during the 1st quarter. Grimes & Company Inc. now owns 64,649 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $22,408,000 after buying an additional 1,357 shares in the last quarter. WoodTrust Financial Corp increased its position in Accenture by 22.5% during the 1st quarter. WoodTrust Financial Corp now owns 866 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $300,000 after buying an additional 159 shares in the last quarter. Griffin Asset Management Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 16.0% during the 1st quarter. Griffin Asset Management Inc. now owns 18,954 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,570,000 after buying an additional 2,610 shares in the last quarter. Toth Financial Advisory Corp increased its position in Accenture by 9.8% during the 1st quarter. Toth Financial Advisory Corp now owns 6,477 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,245,000 after buying an additional 580 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Trust Co. of Virginia VA increased its position in Accenture by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Trust Co. of Virginia VA now owns 27,025 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,367,000 after buying an additional 103 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 4,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.00, for a total transaction of $1,422,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 42,781 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,518,796. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,333 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.12, for a total value of $1,369,747.96. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 30,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,705,516.24. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 4,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.00, for a total value of $1,422,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 42,781 shares in the company, valued at $13,518,796. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 20,083 shares of company stock valued at $6,302,285 over the last ninety days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $303.41 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $203.51 billion, a PE ratio of 27.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.38 and a beta of 1.21. The business’s fifty day moving average is $300.17 and its 200 day moving average is $336.10. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). The company had revenue of $16.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 10.79% and a return on equity of 27.48%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.19 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 11.95 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 11th will be issued a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 11th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 47.25%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird reduced their price objective on Accenture from $372.00 to $345.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 16th. Morgan Stanley downgraded Accenture from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their target price for the company from $382.00 to $300.00 in a research note on Wednesday. Wedbush cut their target price on Accenture from $400.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. TD Cowen cut their target price on Accenture from $294.00 to $293.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, June 21st. Finally, Piper Sandler Companies cut their target price on Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, June 17th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $352.74.

Accenture 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.