Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Acquired by Buckingham Capital Management Inc.

Buckingham Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 9.3% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 25,277 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 2,151 shares during the quarter. Buckingham Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $8,892,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Swedbank AB lifted its position in Accenture by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its position in Accenture by 2,666.5% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 715,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $251,607,000 after purchasing an additional 689,366 shares during the period. Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 37,788.5% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after purchasing an additional 509,011 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on ACN shares. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Down 0.4 %

ACN stock opened at $387.99 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $242.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.55, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $365.29 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $354.45.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.27 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

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.