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

by · The Cerbat Gem

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN – Get Free Report) CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value 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 position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $364.20 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $228.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.35, a PEG ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 1.25. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $348.78 and a 200 day moving average price of $322.52.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.71 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.63%. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 54.21%.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Swedbank AB acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 1st quarter valued at about $820,912,000. Clearbridge Investments LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 44.7% during the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after buying an additional 837,677 shares during the period. 1832 Asset Management L.P. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 251.3% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 995,896 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $302,165,000 after purchasing an additional 712,400 shares during the period. Capital International Investors grew its holdings in Accenture by 196.5% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 988,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $342,483,000 after acquiring an additional 654,807 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 1.1% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,718,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $20,699,110,000 after buying an additional 635,349 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Mizuho boosted their price objective on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Susquehanna raised their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Guggenheim upped their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $371.18.

Read Our Latest Report on ACN

About Accenture

(Get Free Report)

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.

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