Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by Blue Fin Capital Inc.

Blue Fin Capital Inc. trimmed its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 6,217 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 97 shares during the period. Blue Fin Capital Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,187,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Promus Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have commented on the company. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 16th. UBS Group dropped their target price on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Barclays decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 24th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $381.76.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,161,650. The trade was a 13.60% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of ACN opened at $317.98 on Thursday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $302.56 and its 200 day moving average price is $340.66. The stock has a market capitalization of $199.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.68, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $275.01 and a 1-year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th were paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.86%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.89%.

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.