Planning Capital Management Corp Sells 514 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Planning Capital Management Corp decreased its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 74.9% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 172 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 514 shares during the quarter. Planning Capital Management Corp’s holdings in Accenture were worth $61,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Swedbank AB purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 1st quarter valued at about $820,912,000. Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 44.7% during the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $822,238,000 after acquiring an additional 837,677 shares during the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 251.3% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 995,896 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $302,165,000 after purchasing an additional 712,400 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 196.5% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 988,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $342,483,000 after purchasing an additional 654,807 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Accenture by 1.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,718,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $20,699,110,000 after buying an additional 635,349 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on ACN. Mizuho boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $368.23.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’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 $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $362.10 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $226.37 billion, a PE ratio of 31.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 1.25. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $354.85 and its 200 day moving average price is $326.48.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share 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 firm had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 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 1.63%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Company 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.