Hudson Edge Investment Partners Inc. Acquires 2,754 Shares of Accenture PLC $ACN

Hudson Edge Investment Partners Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 15.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 20,412 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,754 shares during the quarter. Hudson Edge Investment Partners Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,101,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in 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 purchasing an additional 3,490,569 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings 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 buying an additional 3,419,577 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its stake 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 valued at $450,985,000 after acquiring an additional 1,395,135 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its position in Accenture by 23.5% during the 1st 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 during the last quarter. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 340.7% in the 1st quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 464,864 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $145,056,000 after purchasing an additional 359,389 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the topic of several research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on Accenture from $302.00 to $290.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 26th. Wolfe Research reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $290.00 to $285.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $315.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 16th. TD Cowen cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $313.00 to $295.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Guggenheim decreased their price objective on Accenture from $305.00 to $285.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating, nine have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $300.22.

Accenture Trading Up 0.4%

ACN opened at $244.58 on Friday. Accenture PLC has a twelve month low of $229.40 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a fifty day moving average of $250.32 and a 200-day moving average of $284.19. The stock has a market cap of $153.19 billion, a PE ratio of 20.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.12 and a beta of 1.28. 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 earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.98 by $0.05. Accenture had a net margin of 11.02% and a return on equity of 26.45%. The business had revenue of $17.60 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Investors of record on Friday, October 10th will be paid 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%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $141,170.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,283 shares in the company, valued at $644,582.22. The trade was a 17.97% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total transaction of $635,794.95. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 8,109 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,290,387.05. This represents a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.