Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-two research firms that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and fourteen have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $373.32.

ACN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Piper Sandler Companies reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total value of $2,945,801.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,412,909.16. This represents a 40.03 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in Accenture by 4.8% during the 2nd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 24,693 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $7,492,000 after acquiring an additional 1,142 shares during the last quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 1.0% in the second quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 170,703 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $51,793,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770 shares during the last quarter. First Pacific Financial boosted its stake in Accenture by 6.9% during the 2nd quarter. First Pacific Financial now owns 3,834 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,163,000 after acquiring an additional 248 shares during the last quarter. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 39.5% in the second quarter. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 84,375 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $25,600,000 after purchasing an additional 23,899 shares during the period. Finally, First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. grew its stake in Accenture by 1.2% in the second quarter. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. now owns 65,678 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $19,927,000 after acquiring an additional 771 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $358.68 on Friday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $360.54 and its 200-day simple moving average is $334.91. Accenture has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $224.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.71 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.65%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

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.