Intact Investment Management Inc. Buys 27,300 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Intact Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 691.1% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 31,250 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 27,300 shares during the quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $10,993,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Swedbank AB grew its position in Accenture by 16.6% during the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $901,967,000 after acquiring an additional 363,401 shares during the last quarter. Entropy Technologies LP bought a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $745,000. Harbour Investments Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 14.1% during the 3rd quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. now owns 1,143 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $404,000 after acquiring an additional 141 shares during the last quarter. Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc grew its position in Accenture by 3.3% during the 3rd quarter. Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc now owns 6,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,276,000 after acquiring an additional 207 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cable Hill Partners LLC grew its position in Accenture by 65.1% during the 3rd quarter. Cable Hill Partners LLC now owns 1,549 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $548,000 after acquiring an additional 611 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN stock opened at $316.48 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $363.72 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $358.10. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market cap of $198.05 billion, a PE ratio of 26.55, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’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 posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the company. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday. UBS Group upped their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Profile

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.