Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.01 EPS

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) announced its earnings results on Thursday. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01, Briefing.com reports. Accenture had a net margin of 10.79% and a return on equity of 27.48%. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.71 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. Accenture updated its Q1 2025 guidance to EPS and its FY 2025 guidance to 12.550-12.910 EPS.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN stock traded down $6.11 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $349.70. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,575,382 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,782,510. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $333.92 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $321.23. The firm has a market capitalization of $219.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.02, a PEG ratio of 3.69 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 47.25%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. Wedbush dropped their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, June 12th. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Bank of America raised their price objective on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $364.64.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total value of $927,660.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 40,070 shares in the company, valued at $12,390,445.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total value of $1,649,100.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 8,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,964,751.98. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total value of $927,660.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 40,070 shares in the company, valued at $12,390,445.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635 in the last ninety days. Corporate 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.