Bradley Foster & Sargent Inc. CT Has $16.47 Million Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Bradley Foster & Sargent Inc. CT boosted its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 36.1% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 46,822 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 12,417 shares during the period. Bradley Foster & Sargent Inc. CT’s holdings in Accenture were worth $16,472,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Swedbank AB raised its position 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 worth $901,967,000 after purchasing an additional 363,401 shares in the last quarter. McAdam LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 8.5% in the 3rd quarter. McAdam LLC now owns 1,248 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $441,000 after buying an additional 98 shares in the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 37,788.5% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after buying an additional 509,011 shares in the last quarter. Spectrum Asset Management Inc. NB CA raised its stake in Accenture by 1.6% during the third quarter. Spectrum Asset Management Inc. NB CA now owns 11,871 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,196,000 after acquiring an additional 192 shares in the last quarter. Finally, YHB Investment Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 9.9% in the 3rd quarter. YHB Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 8,500 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,005,000 after purchasing an additional 765 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $385.06 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $367.37 and a 200-day moving average of $355.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $240.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.30, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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 net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on ACN. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group lifted their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

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.