Accenture (NYSE:ACN) to Buyback $4.00 billion in Shares

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Stock Down 1.7 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $349.70 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $219.15 billion, a PE ratio of 32.02, a PEG ratio of 3.69 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $333.51 and its 200-day moving average price is $321.39. Accenture has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently commented on ACN shares. Piper Sandler Companies reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $395.00 to $340.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. Piper Sandler raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $329.00 to $395.00 in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Guggenheim boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $364.64.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total transaction of $1,649,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 8,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,964,751.98. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In related news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total value of $927,660.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 40,070 shares in the company, valued at $12,390,445.40. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of Accenture 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 completion of the sale, the insider now owns 8,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,964,751.98. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.