Groupe la Francaise Has $38.40 Million Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Groupe la Francaise decreased its position in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 32.4% during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 125,281 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 60,011 shares during the quarter. Groupe la Francaise’s holdings in Accenture were worth $38,402,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Kelly Lawrence W & Associates Inc. CA bought a new stake in Accenture in the 1st quarter valued at about $31,000. RMG Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the second quarter worth approximately $33,000. WPG Advisers LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the first quarter valued at approximately $42,000. Traub Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the second quarter valued at approximately $45,000. Finally, Nova Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Accenture during the first quarter worth approximately $49,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on ACN. Dbs Bank raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 27th. Rothschild & Co Redburn boosted their price target on Accenture from $250.00 to $255.00 in a research note on Friday, September 19th. BNP Paribas Exane reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $300.00 to $255.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 24th. Mizuho dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $348.00 to $309.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, September 29th. Finally, Rothschild Redb downgraded shares of Accenture from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have issued a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $294.25.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 5,917 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $246.62, for a total value of $1,459,250.54. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 8,599 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,120,685.38. This trade represents a 40.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Manish Sharma sold 6,902 shares of the business’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 owned 1,860 shares in the company, valued at approximately $465,018.60. This trade represents a 78.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold 33,319 shares of company stock worth $8,335,225 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Up 1.6%

ACN stock opened at $261.49 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $246.05 and a 200-day moving average price of $267.41. Accenture PLC has a 12 month low of $229.40 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The stock has a market capitalization of $172.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 1.26.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly 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. The company 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 firm’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.66 EPS. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 14th. Investors of record on Friday, October 10th were issued a dividend of $1.63 per share. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 10th. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.5%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 53.66%.

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.