Concord Wealth Partners Raises Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Concord Wealth Partners raised its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 405.3% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 859 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 689 shares during the quarter. Concord Wealth Partners’ holdings in Accenture were worth $265,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL purchased a new position in Accenture in the 1st quarter valued at $28,000. Barrett & Company Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the first quarter valued at about $29,000. Sageworth Trust Co lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 872.7% in the first quarter. Sageworth Trust Co now owns 107 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 96 shares in the last quarter. Guardian Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the first quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, Ten Capital Wealth Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 74.0% in the 1st quarter. Ten Capital Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 134 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $38,000 after acquiring an additional 57 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.42% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently commented on ACN. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $330.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, September 26th. TD Cowen cut their target price on Accenture from $312.00 to $300.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 29th. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $312.00 to $300.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 29th. UBS Group initiated coverage on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday. They set a “neutral” rating and a $333.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $340.00 to $390.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, September 11th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $333.22.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $302.04, for a total transaction of $1,887,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 161,622 shares in the company, valued at $48,816,308.88. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other Accenture news, CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $302.04, for a total value of $1,887,750.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 161,622 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $48,816,308.88. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $314.68, for a total value of $2,832,120.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 26,830 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,442,864.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 36,334 shares of company stock valued at $10,939,027. Insiders own 0.08% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $313.25 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $196.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.73 and a beta of 1.23. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $242.80 and a 12 month high of $330.43. The business has a 50-day moving average of $310.83 and a 200 day moving average of $305.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 28th. The information technology services provider reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.65 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $15.99 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.07 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 29.74% and a net margin of 10.72%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.60 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.1 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 12th will be paid a $1.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, October 11th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.12. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.65%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 47.91%.

Accenture declared that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 28th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to purchase up to 2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

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.