Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Updates FY 2025 Earnings Guidance

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) issued an update on its FY 2025 earnings guidance on Thursday morning. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 12.430-12.790 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 12.740. The company issued revenue guidance of $67.5 billion-$69.4 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $68.5 billion. Accenture also updated its FY25 guidance to $12.43-12.79 EPS.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $383.23.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $366.37 on Friday. The firm 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 fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $360.47 and its 200 day simple moving average is $337.15.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.74 EPS for the current fiscal 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 dividend of $1.48 per share. 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 payout ratio is 51.79%.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,412,909.16. This represents a 40.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. Insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

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.