Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD Acquires 3,490,569 Shares of Accenture PLC $ACN

Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 63.9% during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,490,569 shares during the quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,793,889,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $31,000. Capital A Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Inlight Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the first quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Navigoe LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $37,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on Accenture from $355.00 to $325.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, June 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on Accenture from $334.00 to $302.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Hsbc Global Res upgraded Accenture to a “moderate sell” rating in a report on Monday, July 28th. Argus set a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. Finally, Benchmark reaffirmed a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, June 20th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have issued a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $358.08.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $255.1610 on Thursday. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $279.99 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $308.98. The stock has a market cap of $159.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 1.29. Accenture PLC has a 1 year low of $236.67 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, 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 owned 2,283 shares in the company, valued at $644,582.22. The trade was a 17.97% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total value of $57,315.02. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 5,249 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,482,002.66. This represents a 3.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.