Clifford Group LLC Decreases Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Clifford Group LLC decreased its holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 23.6% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,749 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 540 shares during the quarter. Clifford Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $546,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in 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 worth $19,912,594,000 after buying an additional 3,419,577 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its position in shares of Accenture by 63.9% during 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 purchasing an additional 3,490,569 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 3.5% during 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 purchasing an additional 228,939 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 9.9% during 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 last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 3.3% during the 1st 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 purchasing an additional 164,573 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. HSBC assumed coverage on shares of Accenture in a research report on Monday, July 28th. They set a “reduce” rating and a $240.00 price target for the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, July 17th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $290.00 target price for the company. Rothschild Redb lowered shares of Accenture from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $395.00 target price (up from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $334.00 to $302.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating, nine have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.76.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 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 value of $57,315.02. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 5,249 shares in the company, valued at $1,482,002.66. This trade represents a 3.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, 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 value of $141,170.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,283 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $644,582.22. This represents a 17.97% 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 worth $834,280 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Down 0.9%

NYSE ACN opened at $253.76 on Thursday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $270.48 and a 200-day moving average price of $299.86. Accenture PLC has a one year low of $236.67 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.46. The company has a market capitalization of $158.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.20, a P/E/G ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 1.29.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 10th were given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.3%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 47.13%.

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.