West Branch Capital LLC Trims Stock Position in Accenture PLC $ACN

West Branch Capital LLC cut its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 5.6% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 4,169 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 249 shares during the quarter. West Branch Capital LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,246,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during 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 buying an additional 3,419,577 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased 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 valued at $2,793,889,000 after purchasing an additional 3,490,569 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 3.5% during the 1st 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 period. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC increased its position in Accenture by 2.1% during the 1st 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 period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 3.3% during 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 buying an additional 164,573 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on ACN. TD Cowen cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $313.00 to $295.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. UBS Group cut their price target on Accenture from $363.00 to $315.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $330.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Barclays cut their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, June 23rd. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane cut their target price on Accenture from $300.00 to $255.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, nine have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $301.91.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $57,315.02. Following the sale, the insider owned 5,249 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,482,002.66. The trade was a 3.72% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total value of $635,794.95. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 8,109 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,290,387.05. The trade was a 21.73% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 3.0%

Shares of ACN stock opened at $239.43 on Friday. Accenture PLC has a 1-year low of $229.40 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $149.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.99 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.46. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $253.43 and its 200 day moving average price is $286.28.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly 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 business had revenue of $17.60 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.The company’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm 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, research analysts expect that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business 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 represents a $6.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.7%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 47.13%.

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.