Huntington National Bank Decreases Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Huntington National Bank decreased its holdings in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 36.7% during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 218,259 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 126,393 shares during the period. Huntington National Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $65,235,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during 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 in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings 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 in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 228,939 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 2.1% in the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 6,163,393 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,923,225,000 after purchasing an additional 126,548 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 3.3% in 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 in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. Citigroup upgraded Accenture to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. BNP Paribas Exane decreased their price objective on Accenture from $300.00 to $255.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, September 24th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 26th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on Accenture from $325.00 to $270.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Rothschild & Co Redburn raised their price objective on Accenture from $250.00 to $255.00 in a report on Friday, September 19th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have issued a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $294.25.

Accenture Stock Down 0.7%

Shares of ACN opened at $248.37 on Tuesday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $246.71 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $275.73. The company has a quick ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The company has a market capitalization of $163.55 billion, a PE ratio of 20.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.28. Accenture PLC has a 52-week low of $229.40 and a 52-week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.66 EPS. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Investors of record on Friday, October 10th will be given a dividend of $1.63 per share. This represents a $6.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 53.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.47, for a total transaction of $623,675.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,390 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $346,763.30. This trade represents a 64.27% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Manish Sharma sold 6,902 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $250.01, for a total value of $1,725,569.02. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 1,860 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $465,018.60. The trade was a 78.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 27,402 shares of company stock valued at $6,875,974. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by 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.