Nordea Investment Management AB Sells 172,565 Shares of Accenture PLC $ACN

Key Points

• Nordea Investment Management AB reduced its stake in Accenture PLC by 25.5%, selling 172,565 shares and now holding 505,028 shares valued at approximately $150 million.
• Accenture's recent quarterly earnings exceeded analysts' expectations, reporting $3.03 EPS on revenue of $17.60 billion, up 7.3% year-over-year.
• The company announced a dividend increase to $1.63 per share, reflecting a 2.7% yield, with the dividend payment scheduled for November 14th.

Nordea Investment Management AB trimmed its holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 25.5% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 505,028 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after selling 172,565 shares during the quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB owned 0.08% of Accenture worth $150,104,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,814,234 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $19,912,594,000 after acquiring an additional 3,419,577 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 63.9% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $2,793,889,000 after acquiring an additional 3,490,569 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.5% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,766,369 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $2,111,378,000 after acquiring an additional 228,939 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.1% in 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 worth $1,923,225,000 after acquiring an additional 126,548 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.3% in the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,129,053 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $1,600,470,000 after acquiring an additional 164,573 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Wolfe Research lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $290.00 to $285.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 23rd. Benchmark reiterated a "mixed" rating on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, June 20th. Rothschild & Co Redburn upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $250.00 to $255.00 in a report on Friday, September 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $330.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Saturday, October 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $300.22.

Accenture Stock Up 1.9%

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $238.46 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.46 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 has a market capitalization of $157.02 billion, a PE ratio of 19.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 1.28. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $246.78 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $279.16.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.98 by $0.05. Accenture had a net margin of 11.02% and a return on equity of 26.45%. The business had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.66 EPS. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. Equities analysts expect that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be given a $1.63 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. 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. Accenture's payout ratio is currently 53.66%.

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.

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