Stock Alert: Accenture Shares Rise After Better-than-estimated Earnings

(RTTNews) - Following better-than-expected earnings report, shares of technology giant Accenture plc (ACN) rose 1.23% to close Thursday's trading at $208.30, almost its 52-week high of $208.66.

Earnings for the first quarter of 2020 were $2.09 per share, up from the Street estimate of $1.99. This compares with $1.96 in the corresponding quarter last year. Revenues grew 7% $11.36 billion during the quarter.

Looking forward, the company expects revenues for the second quarter to be in the range of $10.85 billion to $11.15 billion, while analysts see revenue of $11.14 billion.

For fiscal 2020, the company now expects revenue growth to be in the range of 6 percent to 8 percent in local currency, compared with the earlier guidance of 5 percent to 8 percent. The Street expectation is for a growth of 6.5%.

The company updated its full-year earnings outlook to the range of $7.66 to $7.84, compared with $7.62 to $7.84 provided earlier. Analysts expect earnings of $7.84.

Today, Accenture completed the acquisition of Silveo, a French consulting company, that was first announced on November 14. In its Fiscal 2019, Accenture has invested nearly $1.2 billion on 33 acquisitions.

Accenture has a history of uninterrupted dividend payments and regular share buybacks.

The multinational consultancy and outsourcing services company has moved to a quarterly schedule for dividend payments from the first quarter and declared a dividend of $0.80 payable on Feb. 14, 2020, to shareholders of record on Oct. 17, 2019. Till now, the company has been paying dividends semi-annually. During the first quarter, Accenture bought back 3.8 million shares for $729 million.