Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Issues Earnings Results

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

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN stock opened at $372.16 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $232.66 billion, a PE ratio of 32.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $360.36 and its 200 day simple moving average is $336.56.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company 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. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.59%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Mizuho raised 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. Barclays raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Susquehanna upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $374.82.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This represents a 11.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company 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.