ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. Increases Stock Position in Accenture PLC $ACN

ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 18.4% during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 104,148 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 16,220 shares during the quarter. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $31,129,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake 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 buying an additional 3,490,569 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake 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. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 2,782.1% during 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 buying an additional 1,395,135 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake 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 buying an additional 537,223 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. increased its holdings in 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 worth $145,056,000 after acquiring an additional 359,389 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $245.39 on Friday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $249.57 and its 200-day moving average price is $283.65. The firm has a market capitalization of $153.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.20, a PEG ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 1.28. Accenture PLC has a one year low of $229.40 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.46.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $17.60 billion for 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 business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.66 EPS. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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 issued a dividend of $1.63 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.7%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.72%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 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 position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of the 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 directly owned 2,283 shares in the company, valued at approximately $644,582.22. This represents a 17.97% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on ACN. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Accenture in a report on Saturday, September 27th. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 26th. Rothschild Redb lowered shares of Accenture from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Guggenheim decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $305.00 to $285.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Accenture to a “moderate sell” rating in a report on Monday, July 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $300.22.

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.