Country Club Bank Purchases 274 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Country Club Bank boosted its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 8.0% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 3,720 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 274 shares during the period. Country Club Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,301,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of ACN. Annapolis Financial Services LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 507.7% during the first quarter. Annapolis Financial Services LLC now owns 79 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares during the last quarter. Cornerstone Wealth Group LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 12.7% during the first quarter. Cornerstone Wealth Group LLC now owns 1,891 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $656,000 after purchasing an additional 213 shares during the last quarter. Fiduciary Alliance LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 3.9% during the first quarter. Fiduciary Alliance LLC now owns 1,200 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $407,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. LVW Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 8.4% during the first quarter. LVW Advisors LLC now owns 1,137 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $394,000 after purchasing an additional 88 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Diversified Trust Co raised its position in Accenture by 17.3% in the first quarter. Diversified Trust Co now owns 10,150 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,518,000 after acquiring an additional 1,500 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $360.80 on Friday. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $226.11 billion, a PE ratio of 33.04, a P/E/G ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 1.25. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $350.24 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $322.94.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.71 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.64%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 54.21%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,645,075.84. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 24,971 shares of company stock worth $9,330,113 in the last three months. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of several research reports. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $371.18.

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.