Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Updates FY25 Earnings Guidance

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) updated its FY25 earnings guidance on Thursday. The company provided EPS guidance of $12.43-12.79 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $12.74. The company issued revenue guidance of +4-7% yr/yr to $67.49-$69.44 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $68.62 billion. Accenture also updated its FY 2025 guidance to 12.430-12.790 EPS.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on ACN. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. UBS Group raised their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.23.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $366.37 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $229.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $360.47 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $337.15. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. Research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total value of $1,899,689.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This trade represents a 11.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 over the last three months. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.