BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp Sells 18,336 Shares of Accenture PLC $ACN

BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp lessened its stake in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 12.0% during the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 133,925 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 18,336 shares during the period. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp’s holdings in Accenture were worth $41,790,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 5.7% in the 1st 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 grew its position in shares of 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 valued at $2,793,889,000 after buying an additional 3,490,569 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its position in shares of Accenture by 10.7% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 7,582,344 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,667,393,000 after buying an additional 732,769 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its position in shares of 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 valued at $2,111,378,000 after buying an additional 228,939 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its stake in shares of 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 valued at $2,123,702,000 after purchasing an additional 545,109 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on ACN. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $395.00 price objective (up from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a research note on Thursday, May 22nd. Argus set a $370.00 price objective on Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price objective 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. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on Accenture from $340.00 to $325.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on Accenture from $334.00 to $302.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have given 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 stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $358.08.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total value of $635,794.95. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 8,109 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,290,387.05. This represents a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total value of $57,315.02. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 5,249 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,482,002.66. This trade represents a 3.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 2,954 shares of company stock worth $834,280 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $258.8940 on Friday. Accenture PLC has a 12-month low of $236.67 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The business’s fifty day moving average is $277.65 and its 200 day moving average is $307.16. The company has a quick ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The stock has a market cap of $162.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.61, a P/E/G ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 1.29.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Investors 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 dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 47.13%.

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.