Ballast Inc. Acquires New Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Ballast Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 930 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $326,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of ACN. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL purchased a new position in Accenture during the 1st quarter valued at about $28,000. BluePath Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at about $31,000. RVW Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $33,000. Tyler Stone Wealth Management acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at about $35,000. Finally, Canton Hathaway LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $37,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on ACN. Piper Sandler raised their target price on Accenture from $335.00 to $394.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, March 18th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $375.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Redburn Atlantic lifted their price target on Accenture from $410.00 to $445.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Accenture from $363.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 18th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on Accenture from $374.00 to $381.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.00.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.77, for a total value of $2,267,312.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 167,831 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $60,884,051.87. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 31,000 shares of company stock valued at $11,146,998 over the last three months. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $346.10 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $369.12 and a 200 day moving average price of $340.38. The stock has a market cap of $217.11 billion, a PE ratio of 31.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.19 and a beta of 1.20. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $261.68 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $15.85 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. Accenture’s revenue was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.69 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.1 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 11th will be issued a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.49%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 46.78%.

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.