Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Updates FY25 Earnings Guidance

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) updated its FY25 earnings guidance on Thursday. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of $12.43-12.79 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of $12.74. The company issued revenue guidance of +4-7% yr/yr to $67.49-$69.44 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $68.62 billion. Accenture also updated its FY 2025 guidance to 12.430-12.790 EPS.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Bank of America raised their target price on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $366.37 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $360.47 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $337.15. The stock has a market capitalization of $229.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.05, 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 (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.74 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 51.79%.

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

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.24, for a total transaction of $1,866,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 17,593 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,566,411.32. The trade was a 22.13 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.