Allstate Corp Takes Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Allstate Corp acquired a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund acquired 18,536 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $6,521,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth approximately $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was 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 owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $304.32 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $190.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.53, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $354.96 and a 200 day moving average price of $355.97. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year 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.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.77 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.95%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have commented on ACN. Mizuho reduced their target price on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.23.

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.