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

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

Accenture Trading Down 1.7 %

Shares of NYSE ACN traded down $6.11 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $349.70. The company had a trading volume of 2,575,382 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,782,510. The business’s 50-day moving average is $333.92 and its 200-day moving average is $321.23. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $219.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.02, a price-to-earnings-growth 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. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 47.25%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. UBS Group boosted their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $340.00 to $275.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 5th. Finally, Guggenheim increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $364.64.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 3,776 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.05, for a total transaction of $1,166,972.80. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,819 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,652,661.95. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total transaction of $927,660.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 40,070 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,390,445.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 3,776 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.05, for a total value of $1,166,972.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,819 shares in the company, valued at $3,652,661.95. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635 over the last quarter. 0.07% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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

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.