Howard Capital Management Inc. Boosts Stake in Accenture PLC $ACN

Howard Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 17.6% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,435 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 664 shares during the period. Howard Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,326,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its position in 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 worth $2,793,889,000 after buying an additional 3,490,569 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in 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 worth $19,912,594,000 after buying an additional 3,419,577 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised 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 last quarter. McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the second quarter worth $308,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised 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 during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 2,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 in the company, valued at approximately $346,763.30. The trade was a 64.27% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.57, for a total value of $2,246,130.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 23,516 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,868,888.12. This trade represents a 27.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 18,402 shares of company stock valued at $4,595,374 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price objective on Accenture from $260.00 to $235.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Mizuho reduced their price target on Accenture from $348.00 to $309.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, September 29th. UBS Group reduced their price target on Accenture from $363.00 to $315.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 24th. TD Cowen cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $313.00 to $295.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Citigroup raised shares of Accenture to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $297.48.

Accenture Stock Up 1.1%

Accenture stock opened at $253.57 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $166.97 billion, a PE ratio of 20.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 1.28. Accenture PLC has a 12 month low of $229.40 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $247.27 and a 200-day simple moving average of $276.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.42.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.The business’s revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.63 per share. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. 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. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.