Julie Spellman Sweet Sells 9,000 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,645,075.84. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $370.63 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $232.27 billion, a PE ratio of 33.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 1.25. The business has a 50-day moving average of $348.78 and a 200-day moving average of $322.52. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results 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. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.71 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.60%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 54.21%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently commented on ACN shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Barclays lifted their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Piper Sandler Companies reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $371.18.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp raised its position in shares of Accenture by 18.7% in the second quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 172,199 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $52,247,000 after purchasing an additional 27,168 shares during the period. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board lifted its position in Accenture by 11.9% during the 1st quarter. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board now owns 36,750 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $12,393,000 after acquiring an additional 3,900 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 13.3% during the first quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 183,446 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $63,584,000 after acquiring an additional 21,516 shares during the period. M&G Plc bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the first quarter worth about $19,007,000. Finally, First Long Island Investors LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 27.8% during the 1st quarter. First Long Island Investors LLC now owns 65,717 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,778,000 after purchasing an additional 14,283 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.