Copeland Capital Management LLC Lowers Stock Position in Accenture PLC $ACN

Copeland Capital Management LLC reduced its stake in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 4.1% during the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 2,494 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 106 shares during the quarter. Copeland Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $746,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 63.9% during the first 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 acquiring an additional 3,490,569 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake 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 worth $19,912,594,000 after acquiring an additional 3,419,577 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 2,782.1% during the first quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,445,281 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $450,985,000 after acquiring an additional 1,395,135 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 23.5% during the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,823,228 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $880,960,000 after acquiring an additional 537,223 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 340.7% during the first quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 464,864 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $145,056,000 after acquiring an additional 359,389 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $245.39 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $153.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 1.28. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $249.57 and its 200 day simple moving average is $283.65. Accenture PLC has a twelve month low of $229.40 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.98 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $17.60 billion for 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 revenue for the quarter 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 year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be given a dividend of $1.63 per share. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.72%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on ACN. Evercore ISI set a $280.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research note on Thursday, September 25th. Royal Bank Of Canada cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $372.00 to $285.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 26th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Rothschild & Co Redburn raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $250.00 to $255.00 in a report on Friday, September 19th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $330.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $300.22.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $141,170.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,283 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $644,582.22. This trade represents a 17.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the firm’s 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 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.