Baron Silver Stevens Financial Advisors LLC Acquires 196 Shares of Accenture PLC $ACN

Baron Silver Stevens Financial Advisors LLC increased its stake in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 19.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,202 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 196 shares during the period. Baron Silver Stevens Financial Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $359,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in Accenture by 63.9% in 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. lifted its stake in 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 purchasing an additional 3,419,577 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2,782.1% in the 1st quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,445,281 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $450,985,000 after purchasing an additional 1,395,135 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 23.5% during the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,823,228 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $880,960,000 after purchasing an additional 537,223 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 340.7% during the 1st quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 464,864 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $145,056,000 after buying an additional 359,389 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have commented on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $330.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Mizuho set a $348.00 target price on shares of Accenture and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, June 24th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $325.00 to $270.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. BNP Paribas Exane reduced their price objective on Accenture from $300.00 to $255.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 24th. Finally, Evercore ISI set a $280.00 target price on Accenture in a research note on Thursday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating, nine have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $301.91.

Insider Activity

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

Accenture Trading Up 3.0%

Accenture stock opened at $239.43 on Monday. Accenture PLC has a 12-month low of $229.40 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $149.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.71, a P/E/G ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 1.30. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $253.43 and a 200 day moving average of $285.81. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.02% and a return on equity of 26.45%. The company’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior 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 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

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

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.