William Blair Investment Management LLC Has $453,000 Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

William Blair Investment Management LLC cut its holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 99.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,515 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 310,504 shares during the quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $453,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also bought and sold shares of ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Accenture by 5.7% in the first 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 purchasing an additional 3,419,577 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its position in Accenture by 63.9% in 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 purchasing an additional 3,490,569 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its position in Accenture by 3.5% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,766,369 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,111,378,000 after purchasing an additional 228,939 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC raised its position in Accenture by 2.1% in the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 6,163,393 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,923,225,000 after purchasing an additional 126,548 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in Accenture by 3.3% in the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,129,053 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,600,470,000 after purchasing an additional 164,573 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several research reports. Barclays dropped their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. Wall Street Zen downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, October 11th. HSBC lowered their price objective on Accenture from $240.00 to $215.00 in a research report on Friday, September 26th. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, Argus set a $370.00 price objective on Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $300.22.

Accenture Stock Up 1.6%

Accenture stock opened at $242.31 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. Accenture PLC has a 12-month low of $229.40 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $246.85 and its 200 day moving average is $278.44. The company has a market capitalization of $159.55 billion, a PE ratio of 19.94, a PEG ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 1.28.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. Accenture had a net margin of 11.02% and a return on equity of 26.45%. The company had revenue of $17.60 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.34 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.66 EPS. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict 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 will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.63 per share. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.7%. The ex-dividend date 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.