Czech National Bank Has $47.66 Million Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Czech National Bank raised its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 135,482 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 7,881 shares during the period. Czech National Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $47,661,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 2.0% in the third quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,447 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $511,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. BSW Wealth Partners grew its position in shares of Accenture by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter. BSW Wealth Partners now owns 4,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,441,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. Slow Capital Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Slow Capital Inc. now owns 9,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,205,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,871,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Finally, NBC Securities Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture by 0.6% in the third quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 5,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,840,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Citigroup raised their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.04.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $349.93 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $218.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $357.82 and its 200-day simple moving average is $344.30.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

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.