Wedge Capital Management L L P NC Grows Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Wedge Capital Management L L P NC raised its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.0% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 18,938 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,729 shares during the period. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,646,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Garrison Asset Management LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Garrison Asset Management LLC now owns 16,376 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $5,747,000 after buying an additional 98 shares in the last quarter. RWA Wealth Partners LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 95.9% in the fourth quarter. RWA Wealth Partners LLC now owns 50,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $17,829,000 after buying an additional 24,874 shares in the last quarter. Sage Mountain Advisors LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 6.1% in the fourth quarter. Sage Mountain Advisors LLC now owns 3,746 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,315,000 after buying an additional 216 shares in the last quarter. Monument Capital Management raised its stake in Accenture by 216.7% in the fourth quarter. Monument Capital Management now owns 3,987 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,399,000 after buying an additional 2,728 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Diversified LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Diversified LLC now owns 1,487 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $522,000 after purchasing an additional 53 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on Accenture from $364.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Susquehanna reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $360.00 target price (down previously from $400.00) on shares of Accenture in a research report on Thursday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on Accenture from $363.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 18th. BNP Paribas raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $440.00 price target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $394.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, March 18th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.00.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $316.80 on Wednesday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $353.29 and its 200-day simple moving average is $342.40. The firm has a market capitalization of $212.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.19. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $261.68 and a 12 month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $15.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.85 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.69 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 11th will be given a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 46.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 3,010 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $371.80, for a total transaction of $1,119,118.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,193 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,417,957.40. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Accenture news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $371.81, for a total value of $1,859,050.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 20,316 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,553,691.96. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 3,010 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $371.80, for a total value of $1,119,118.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,193 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,417,957.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 39,833 shares of company stock worth $13,645,871 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.07% 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.