Live Oak Private Wealth LLC Has $317,000 Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Live Oak Private Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.9% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 902 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the quarter. Live Oak Private Wealth LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $317,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Atomi Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 39.0% during the third quarter. Atomi Financial Group Inc. now owns 2,302 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $814,000 after purchasing an additional 646 shares during the period. Artemis Investment Management LLP acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $2,691,000. Marcum Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 12.0% during the 3rd quarter. Marcum Wealth LLC now owns 2,236 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $790,000 after acquiring an additional 239 shares during the period. Wedmont Private Capital boosted its stake in Accenture by 31.3% during the third quarter. Wedmont Private Capital now owns 4,389 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,566,000 after acquiring an additional 1,047 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Patten Group Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 20.2% in the third quarter. Patten Group Inc. now owns 3,696 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,306,000 after purchasing an additional 621 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other 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 transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $386.71 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $361.34 and a 200 day moving average of $351.40. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $242.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.44, a PEG ratio of 3.43 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 (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.53%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

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.