Fred Alger Management LLC Has $313,000 Stake in Accenture PLC $ACN

Fred Alger Management LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 95.8% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 1,002 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 23,037 shares during the quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $313,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Lipe & Dalton raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 2,087.4% during the first quarter. Lipe & Dalton now owns 5,031 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,570,000 after buying an additional 4,801 shares during the last quarter. Redwood Investments LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 6.2% during the first quarter. Redwood Investments LLC now owns 22,087 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,892,000 after buying an additional 1,287 shares during the last quarter. United Bank bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the first quarter worth approximately $758,000. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the first quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 905 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $282,000 after buying an additional 347 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ceredex Value Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the first quarter worth approximately $35,934,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The shares were 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,290,387.05. This trade represents a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $57,315.02. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 5,249 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,482,002.66. This represents a 3.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have commented on ACN shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $334.00 to $302.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 20th. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $395.00 target price (up previously from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a research note on Thursday, May 22nd. Guggenheim lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $360.00 to $335.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 23rd. Mizuho set a $348.00 target price on shares of Accenture and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on shares of Accenture in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $290.00 target price for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have issued a Buy rating, nine have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $348.12.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $243.01 on Thursday. Accenture PLC has a 12 month low of $236.67 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $265.74 and a 200 day simple moving average of $295.32. The stock has a market capitalization of $152.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.35, a PEG ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 10th were given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.4%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.