Gladstone Institutional Advisory LLC Has $2.40 Million Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Gladstone Institutional Advisory LLC reduced its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 6,816 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 482 shares during the period. Gladstone Institutional Advisory LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,398,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Creative Planning grew its position in Accenture by 5.5% in the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 247,724 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $87,566,000 after purchasing an additional 12,993 shares during the period. NBC Securities Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.6% during the third quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 5,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,840,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB increased its position in shares of Accenture by 16.6% during the third 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 in the last quarter. Brady Family Wealth LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. Brady Family Wealth LLC now owns 24,592 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $8,693,000 after acquiring an additional 509 shares during the last quarter. Finally, EdgeRock Capital LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 12.0% in the 3rd quarter. EdgeRock Capital LLC now owns 654 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $231,000 after acquiring an additional 70 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently commented on ACN. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler increased their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Accenture Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of ACN opened at $388.85 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $243.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The business has a 50-day moving average of $363.57 and a 200 day moving average of $353.18.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.52%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.