Stock Buyback Plan Initiated by Accenture (NYSE:ACN)

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) declared that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $349.70 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $333.92 and a 200-day moving average of $320.81. Accenture has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $219.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.02, a P/E/G ratio of 3.69 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 10.79% and a return on equity of 27.48%. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.71 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Accenture will post 11.95 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.69%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 47.25%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Guggenheim boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Accenture in a research report on Monday, June 24th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $335.00 target price for the company. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $395.00 to $340.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Nine equities research 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, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $364.64.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total value of $1,649,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 8,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,964,751.98. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total value of $1,649,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 8,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,964,751.98. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 22,849 shares in the company, valued at $7,564,161.45. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,421 shares of company stock worth $6,912,635 in the last three months. 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.