Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Releases Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.16 EPS

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

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $24.55 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $372.16. The stock had a trading volume of 6,069,188 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,694,376. The company has a 50 day moving average of $360.14 and a two-hundred day moving average of $336.31. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $232.66 billion, a PE ratio of 32.56, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.59%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase plan 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 shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually a sign that the company's board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently commented on the company. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Monday. Citigroup raised their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler Companies reiterated a "neutral" rating and issued a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 20th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $374.82.

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.