Ameriprise Financial Inc. Buys 703,215 Shares of Accenture PLC $ACN

Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 16.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 5,070,546 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 703,215 shares during the quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. owned about 0.81% of Accenture worth $1,515,169,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. CTC Alternative Strategies Ltd. bought a new position in Accenture during the second quarter worth $1,028,000. Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 159.8% in the 2nd quarter. Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC now owns 16,770 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $5,012,000 after acquiring an additional 10,314 shares in the last quarter. MGB Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 25.3% during the 2nd quarter. MGB Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,372 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $409,000 after purchasing an additional 277 shares in the last quarter. Ausdal Financial Partners Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 16.9% during the second quarter. Ausdal Financial Partners Inc. now owns 1,356 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $405,000 after purchasing an additional 196 shares during the period. Finally, California State Teachers Retirement System lifted its stake in Accenture by 0.8% in the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 983,411 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $293,932,000 after buying an additional 7,478 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 5,917 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $246.62, for a total transaction of $1,459,250.54. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 8,599 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,120,685.38. This trade represents a 40.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 2,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.47, for a total transaction of $623,675.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 1,390 shares in the company, valued at approximately $346,763.30. This trade represents a 64.27% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders sold 33,319 shares of company stock valued at $8,335,225. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Trading Up 0.5%

NYSE:ACN opened at $271.70 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.42. Accenture PLC has a one year low of $229.40 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $178.91 billion, a PE ratio of 22.36, a PEG ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 1.26. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $250.48 and a 200-day moving average of $265.55.

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 business had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.66 EPS. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 14th. Investors of record on Friday, October 10th were issued a dividend of $1.63 per share. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.4%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 53.66%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Wolfe Research raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $300.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday. BNP Paribas Exane reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $300.00 to $255.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 24th. TD Cowen dropped 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, September 26th. Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their target price on Accenture from $372.00 to $285.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, October 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $293.21.

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.