Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.16 EPS

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday. 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, RTT News reports. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.27 EPS.

Accenture Stock Down 2.7 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $347.61 on Thursday. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $360.14 and its 200 day simple moving average is $336.31. The stock has a market capitalization of $217.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.41, a PEG 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.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 51.79%.

Insider Activity

In related news, COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.24, for a total value of $1,866,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 17,593 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,566,411.32. This represents a 22.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. The trade was a 11.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Mizuho raised their target price on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler Companies restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Barclays boosted their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, Susquehanna raised their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $374.50.

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.