Accenture plc (ACN) To Go Ex-Dividend on January 16th

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, November 19th,RTT News reports. Stockholders 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th.

Accenture has increased its dividend payment by an average of 14.0% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 20 consecutive years. Accenture has a payout ratio of 42.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. 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 Down 0.2 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $349.14 on Tuesday. Accenture has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $357.93 and its 200 day moving average price is $344.63. The stock has a market capitalization of $218.49 billion, a PE ratio of 30.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company 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%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. Analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other 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 sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,593 shares in the company, valued at $6,566,411.32. The trade was a 22.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. The trade was a 11.59 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Piper Sandler Companies reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

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.