Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. Raises Stake in Accenture PLC $ACN

Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. grew its position in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 18.0% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 24,682 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,761 shares during the period. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $7,377,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% in 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 acquiring an additional 3,419,577 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 63.9% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,793,889,000 after acquiring an additional 3,490,569 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.5% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,766,369 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,111,378,000 after acquiring an additional 228,939 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.1% in the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 6,163,393 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,923,225,000 after acquiring an additional 126,548 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.3% in the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,129,053 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,600,470,000 after acquiring an additional 164,573 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $249.14 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The stock has a market cap of $164.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.51, a PEG ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a 50-day moving average of $247.18 and a two-hundred day moving average of $278.05. Accenture PLC has a 12-month low of $229.40 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.02% and a return on equity of 26.45%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be given a $1.63 dividend. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 53.66%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Rothschild Redb cut shares of Accenture from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $313.00 to $295.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, October 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $302.00 to $290.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $315.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 16th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $297.48.

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.