Ballast Advisors LLC Grows Position in Accenture PLC $ACN

Ballast Advisors LLC lifted its position in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 5,846 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 239 shares during the period. Ballast Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,747,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other large investors have also modified their holdings of ACN. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 1,287.0% during the 2nd quarter. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. now owns 6,200 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,853,000 after acquiring an additional 5,753 shares during the period. Fiduciary Wealth Partners LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 753.1% during the second quarter. Fiduciary Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,237 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $370,000 after purchasing an additional 1,092 shares in the last quarter. Interchange Capital Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 9.3% during the 2nd quarter. Interchange Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,014 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $303,000 after buying an additional 86 shares during the period. Cabot Wealth Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 0.9% during the 2nd quarter. Cabot Wealth Management Inc. now owns 33,728 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $10,081,000 after buying an additional 287 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC now owns 6,070 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,814,000 after acquiring an additional 250 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, insider Manish Sharma sold 6,902 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $250.01, for a total value of $1,725,569.02. Following the transaction, the insider owned 1,860 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $465,018.60. This represents a 78.77% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.57, for a total value of $2,246,130.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 23,516 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,868,888.12. The trade was a 27.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 18,402 shares of company stock worth $4,595,374 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, September 30th. Wall Street Zen lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, October 11th. Guggenheim dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $305.00 to $285.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $325.00 to $271.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $297.48.

Accenture Stock Down 0.8%

NYSE ACN opened at $247.93 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. Accenture PLC has a 52 week low of $229.40 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $247.27 and its 200-day simple moving average is $277.55. The firm has a market cap of $163.25 billion, a PE ratio of 20.41, a P/E/G ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.28.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.63 per share. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.6%. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 53.66%.

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.