Patten & Patten Inc. TN Acquires New Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Patten & Patten Inc. TN acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 640 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $225,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Swedbank AB raised its stake in Accenture by 16.6% in the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $901,967,000 after buying an additional 363,401 shares during the last quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 3.1% in the third quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC now owns 4,140 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,463,000 after purchasing an additional 125 shares during the last quarter. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.0% in the third quarter. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC now owns 7,800 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,757,000 after purchasing an additional 512 shares during the last quarter. Zevin Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 2.6% in the third quarter. Zevin Asset Management LLC now owns 33,532 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $11,853,000 after purchasing an additional 857 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth about $30,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $326.25 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $362.51 and its 200-day moving average price is $358.14. The firm has a market capitalization of $204.16 billion, a PE ratio of 27.37, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of several research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.04.

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.