Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) to Issue $1.29 Quarterly Dividend

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, June 20th, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Thursday, July 11th will be given a dividend of 1.29 per share by the information technology services provider on Thursday, August 15th. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 11th.

Accenture has increased its dividend payment by an average of 12.3% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 19 consecutive years. Accenture has a payout ratio of 40.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Accenture to earn $12.60 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.16 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 41.0%.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $298.47 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $187.05 billion, a PE ratio of 27.33, a P/E/G ratio of 3.34 and a beta of 1.23. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $299.08 and its 200 day simple moving average is $333.95. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The firm had revenue of $16.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.55 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.19 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Accenture will post 11.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. Mizuho lowered their target price on Accenture from $398.00 to $350.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, June 18th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $395.00 to $340.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, June 12th. Redburn Atlantic boosted their price objective on Accenture from $410.00 to $445.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 19th. Barclays cut their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $350.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 17th. Finally, TD Cowen dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $294.00 to $293.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, June 21st. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $351.82.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total value of $1,536,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 13,699 shares in the company, valued at $4,208,606.78. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $315.91, for a total value of $1,974,437.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 161,581 shares in the company, valued at $51,045,053.71. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total transaction of $1,536,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 13,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,208,606.78. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 20,083 shares of company stock valued at $6,302,285 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is owned by 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.