Griffin Asset Management Inc. Boosts Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Griffin Asset Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 2.8% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 29,492 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 798 shares during the period. Griffin Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $8,815,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its position in Accenture by 63.9% during the first 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 during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted 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 purchasing an additional 3,419,577 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2,782.1% during the first 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 during the period. McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the second quarter worth about $308,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 23.5% during the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,823,228 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $880,960,000 after purchasing an additional 537,223 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on ACN shares. Susquehanna dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $330.00 to $270.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, September 18th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $260.00 to $235.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $302.00 to $290.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Guggenheim dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $305.00 to $285.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $300.22.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $241.11 on Monday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $247.45 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $281.18. Accenture PLC has a fifty-two week low of $229.40 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $151.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.84, a P/E/G ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.42.

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 firm had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.66 earnings per share. The business’s revenue 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. Analysts expect that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.7%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 53.66%.

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.