Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.01 EPS

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01, Briefing.com reports. Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.71 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. Accenture updated its Q1 2025 guidance to EPS and its FY 2025 guidance to 12.550-12.910 EPS.

Accenture Trading Down 1.7 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $349.70 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $333.92 and a 200-day moving average of $321.23. The firm has a market cap of $219.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.02, a P/E/G ratio of 3.69 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 47.25%.

Accenture announced that its board has authorized a share buyback plan 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 reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. Citigroup boosted their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on Accenture from $395.00 to $340.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, June 12th. Barclays decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $350.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 17th. TD Cowen upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $293.00 to $321.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $364.64.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total value of $927,660.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 40,070 shares in the company, valued at $12,390,445.40. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 3,776 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.05, for a total transaction of $1,166,972.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,819 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,652,661.95. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total transaction of $927,660.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 40,070 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,390,445.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

About Accenture

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.