Accenture (ACN) Fell on Investors’ Concerns Over Long-Term Impact of AI

1 hour ago 1

Soumya Eswaran

Thu, December 18, 2025 astatine 8:00 AM CST 3 min read

Aristotle Capital Management, LLC, an concern absorption company, released its “International Equity Strategy” 3rd 4th 2025 capitalist letter. A transcript of the missive tin be downloaded here. Global equity markets continued their upward travel successful the 3rd quarter, with the MSCI ACWI Index surging 7.62%. Global fixed income markets besides accrued during the aforesaid period, with the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Bond Index rising 0.60%. The Aristotle International Equity Fund (Class I-2) returned 1.15% successful the 4th compared to a 6.89% instrumentality for the MSCI ACWI ex USA Index and a 4.77% instrumentality for the MSCI EAFE Index. In addition, you tin cheque the fund’s apical 5 holdings to find its champion picks for 2025.

In its third-quarter 2025 capitalist letter, Aristotle International Equity Strategy highlighted stocks specified arsenic Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN). Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) is simply a nonrecreational services institution that provides absorption consulting, technology, and outsourcing services. The one-month instrumentality of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) was 8.69%, and its shares mislaid 25.28% of their worth implicit the past 52 weeks. On December 17, 2025, Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) banal closed astatine $273.74 per share, with a marketplace capitalization of $180.765 billion.

Aristotle International Equity Strategy stated the pursuing regarding Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) successful its 3rd 4th 2025 capitalist letter:

"Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN), the planetary IT consultancy, was 1 of the largest detractors. The company’s operations are divided astir evenly betwixt Consulting and Managed Services (outsourcing). While Accenture’s strategical pivot to AI successful 2023 has driven a accelerated summation successful AI-related gross and bookings (nearly doubling to $5.9 cardinal successful fiscal 2025), investors person grown progressively acrophobic astir the longer-term interaction of AI connected its outsourcing business—revenue heavy reliant connected billable hours. Moreover, the U.S. government’s DOGE inaugural created a headwind, arsenic national contracts person historically represented astir 8% of Accenture’s revenue. Despite these challenges, Accenture continues to grow, albeit astatine a below-normal complaint successful the caller period, portion simultaneously investing successful its workforce—now employing astir 77,000 AI and information specialists, astir 10% of its planetary staff—and returning billions of dollars to shareholders done double-digit increases successful some dividends (+10% year-over-year) and stock buybacks (+15%). While we admit that marketplace concerns astir AI’s disruptive imaginable warrant consideration, we judge Accenture shares person been excessively punished (valuations are astatine 10-year lows). The banal has retreated to mid-2020 levels, adjacent though net per stock and FREE currency travel are much than 50% and 40% higher, respectively, than they were astatine that time."