Welch Group LLC Purchases 1,885 Shares of Accenture PLC $ACN

Welch Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 8.8% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 23,300 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,885 shares during the period. Welch Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,964,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 63.9% in 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 holdings 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 valued at $19,912,594,000 after acquiring an additional 3,419,577 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 1,395,135 shares during the period. McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the second quarter worth $308,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 23.5% in 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 owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $241.11 on Monday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $247.45 and its two-hundred day moving average is $281.18. Accenture PLC has a 52-week low of $229.40 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.42. The company has a market cap of $151.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.84, a P/E/G ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 1.28.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share 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 the consensus estimate of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.02% and a return on equity of 26.45%. The business’s quarterly 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. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed 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 a boost 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%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 53.66%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently commented on ACN shares. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Accenture from $355.00 to $315.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 16th. Evercore ISI set a $280.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, September 25th. Wolfe Research dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $290.00 to $285.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 23rd. Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of 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, Susquehanna decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $330.00 to $270.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 18th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target 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.