Maple Capital Management Inc. Grows Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Maple Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 2.4% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 113,380 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,657 shares during the quarter. Accenture accounts for about 2.3% of Maple Capital Management Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 15th largest holding. Maple Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $33,888,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. C WorldWide Group Holding A S grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 35.9% during the second quarter. C WorldWide Group Holding A S now owns 8,148 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,435,000 after buying an additional 2,151 shares during the last quarter. Truist Financial Corp boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.0% during the second quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 436,202 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $130,376,000 after purchasing an additional 28,685 shares during the period. Redwood Investments LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 6.2% during the 1st quarter. Redwood Investments LLC now owns 22,087 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,892,000 after buying an additional 1,287 shares during the last quarter. Lipe & Dalton grew its holdings in Accenture by 2,087.4% in the 1st quarter. Lipe & Dalton now owns 5,031 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,570,000 after acquiring an additional 4,801 shares during the last quarter. Finally, PDS Planning Inc increased its position in shares of Accenture by 34.7% in the second quarter. PDS Planning Inc now owns 4,055 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,212,000 after acquiring an additional 1,044 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Accenture in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Rothschild Redb lowered shares of Accenture from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Mizuho cut their price objective on Accenture from $348.00 to $309.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, September 29th. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on Accenture from $325.00 to $271.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised their price objective on Accenture from $285.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $294.25.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $242.57 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $159.72 billion, a PE ratio of 19.96, a P/E/G ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.28. 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 PLC has a 1 year low of $229.40 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $245.10 and a 200-day moving average price of $273.93.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 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 period in the previous year, the company earned $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders 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 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 2.7%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 53.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.47, for a total value of $623,675.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 1,390 shares in the company, valued at approximately $346,763.30. This trade represents a 64.27% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 5,917 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $246.62, for a total transaction of $1,459,250.54. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 8,599 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,120,685.38. This represents a 40.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 33,319 shares of company stock worth $8,335,225. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Company 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.