Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Issues FY 2025 Earnings Guidance

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) updated its FY 2025 earnings guidance on Thursday. The company provided EPS guidance of 12.430-12.790 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 12.740. The company issued revenue guidance of $67.5 billion-$69.4 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $68.5 billion. Accenture also updated its FY25 guidance to $12.43-12.79 EPS.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $364.00 on Thursday. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $227.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.85, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $360.14 and its 200-day moving average price is $336.31.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have weighed in on ACN shares. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 20th. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $374.50.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 12,188 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. This trade represents a 40.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. Company 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.