Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Issues Quarterly Earnings Results

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) announced its earnings results on Thursday. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16, RTT News reports. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS.

Accenture Stock Down 1.6 %

NYSE ACN opened at $366.37 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $360.47 and a 200 day moving average price of $337.15. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $229.04 billion, a PE ratio of 32.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on ACN shares. Mizuho lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Susquehanna upped their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.23.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total value of $1,899,689.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,490,266.50. This trade represents a 11.59 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. Insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

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.