Accenture PLC $ACN Shares Sold by First Manhattan CO. LLC.

First Manhattan CO. LLC. lowered its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 6.8% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 627,944 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 45,476 shares during the quarter. First Manhattan CO. LLC. owned approximately 0.10% of Accenture worth $195,944,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,814,234 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $19,912,594,000 after buying an additional 3,419,577 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its position in Accenture by 63.9% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,793,889,000 after purchasing an additional 3,490,569 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 3.5% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,766,369 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,111,378,000 after purchasing an additional 228,939 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in Accenture by 9.9% in the 4th quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 6,036,845 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,123,702,000 after purchasing an additional 545,109 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 3.3% in the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,129,053 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,600,470,000 after purchasing an additional 164,573 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Accenture from $334.00 to $302.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 20th. Mizuho set a $348.00 price target on Accenture and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, June 24th. Barclays lowered their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 23rd. Argus set a $370.00 price target on Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. Finally, Evercore ISI began coverage on Accenture in a report on Thursday, July 17th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $330.00 target price on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have issued a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $358.08.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $260.12 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $162.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.30. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $272.89 and its 200-day moving average is $301.38. Accenture PLC has a one year low of $236.67 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.46.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.32 by $0.17. The company had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.26 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.55% and a net margin of 11.61%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.13 earnings per share. Accenture has set its Q4 2025 guidance at EPS. FY 2025 guidance at 12.770-12.890 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.3%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 47.13%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total value of $635,794.95. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 8,109 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,290,387.05. The trade was a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total value of $141,170.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,283 shares in the company, valued at approximately $644,582.22. This represents a 17.97% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.