Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $1.48

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, December 19th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of 1.48 per share by the information technology services provider on Friday, February 14th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%.

Accenture has increased its dividend payment by an average of 12.3% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 20 years. Accenture has a payout ratio of 46.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Accenture to earn $13.76 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 43.0%.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $347.61 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $217.31 billion, a PE ratio of 30.41, a P/E/G 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 has a 50 day simple moving average of $360.14 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $336.31.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.74 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $395.00 to $422.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. UBS Group raised their target price on Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $374.50.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase 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 reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. The trade was a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This trade 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 worth $13,372,661. 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.