ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. Increases Stock Position in Accenture PLC $ACN

ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 18.4% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 104,148 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 16,220 shares during the quarter. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $31,129,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 36.2% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,486,000 after buying an additional 4,905 shares during the period. RFG Advisory LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 4.7% during the 1st quarter. RFG Advisory LLC now owns 3,187 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $995,000 after buying an additional 143 shares during the period. Vest Financial LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 30.1% in the 1st quarter. Vest Financial LLC now owns 119,916 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $37,419,000 after purchasing an additional 27,769 shares during the period. Signal Advisors Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 15.5% in the 1st quarter. Signal Advisors Wealth LLC now owns 3,863 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,206,000 after purchasing an additional 518 shares during the period. Finally, Atwater Malick LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 2.5% in the 1st quarter. Atwater Malick LLC now owns 39,021 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $12,176,000 after purchasing an additional 942 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 26th. BNP Paribas Exane dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $300.00 to $255.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 24th. Rothschild Redb cut shares of Accenture from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $260.00 to $235.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $330.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $300.22.

Accenture Trading Up 0.4%

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $245.39 on Friday. Accenture PLC has a 1 year low of $229.40 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $153.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 1.28. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $249.57 and a 200 day moving average of $283.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.46.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share 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 analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.02% and a return on equity of 26.45%. Accenture’s revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.66 EPS. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect 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. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.63 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 10th. This represents a $6.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.7%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 48.72%.

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.