Accenture plc Declares Quarterly Dividend of $1.48 (NYSE:ACN)

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, November 19th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of 1.48 per share by the information technology services provider on Friday, February 14th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th.

Accenture has raised its dividend payment by an average of 14.0% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 20 consecutive years. Accenture has a dividend payout ratio of 42.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Accenture to earn $13.76 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 43.0%.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

ACN opened at $349.14 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $218.49 billion, a PE ratio of 30.55, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $357.93 and its 200-day simple moving average is $344.63.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts recently commented on the company. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Finally, Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $385.04.

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.