Stock Buyback Plan Initiated by Accenture (NYSE:ACN)

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently commented on ACN. Bank of America raised their target price on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Barclays reduced their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $350.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 17th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Accenture from $395.00 to $340.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Mizuho lifted their price objective on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $364.64.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $349.70 on Friday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $333.92 and its 200-day simple moving average is $320.81. The firm has a market capitalization of $219.15 billion, a PE ratio of 32.02, a PEG ratio of 3.69 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that Accenture will post 11.95 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.69%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 47.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 22,849 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,564,161.45. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 22,849 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,564,161.45. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total value of $1,649,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 8,989 shares in the company, valued at $2,964,751.98. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate 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.