Eastern Bank Decreases Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Eastern Bank trimmed its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 3.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 31,749 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,128 shares during the period. Eastern Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $9,489,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Brighton Jones LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 36.2% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,486,000 after purchasing an additional 4,905 shares during the last quarter. Ferguson Wellman Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 0.8% during the first quarter. Ferguson Wellman Capital Management Inc. now owns 5,598 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,747,000 after buying an additional 47 shares during the last quarter. Rockland Trust Co. increased its holdings in Accenture by 1.7% during the first quarter. Rockland Trust Co. now owns 69,647 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $21,733,000 after buying an additional 1,177 shares during the last quarter. Birch Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 2.7% during the first quarter. Birch Capital Management LLC now owns 19,132 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $5,970,000 after buying an additional 502 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Liberty Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 5.8% during the first quarter. Liberty Capital Management Inc. now owns 4,023 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,255,000 after buying an additional 222 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have commented on ACN. Guggenheim reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $305.00 to $285.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. Benchmark reiterated a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, June 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $302.00 to $290.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 26th. Wolfe Research dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $290.00 to $285.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 23rd. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $372.00 to $285.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $300.22.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $241.11 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $151.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.84, a PEG ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.28. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $247.45 and its 200 day moving average is $281.57. The company has a quick ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. Accenture PLC has a 52-week low of $229.40 and a 52-week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly 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. The company 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%. Accenture’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior 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. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Investors of record on Friday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.63 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.7%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.72%.

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.