Accenture Guides FY23 EPS Below Estimates; Raises Dividend 15%

(RTTNews) - While reporting financial results for the fourth quarter on Thursday, professional services company Accenture plc (ACN) initiated earnings and revenue growth outlook for the full-year 2023, and also provided revenue outlook for the first quarter.

For fiscal 2023, the company now expects earnings in a range of $11.09 to $11.41 per share on revenue growth of 8 to 11 percent in local currency.

The company assumes that the foreign-exchange impact on its results in U.S. dollars for 2022 will be about negative 6% compared with fiscal 2022.

On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report earnings of $12.00 per share on revenue growth of 7.6 percent to $66.45 billion for the year. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

For the first quarter of fiscal 2022, the company projects revenues in the range of $15.20 billion to $15.75 billion, 10% to 14% growth in local currency, reflecting the company's assumption of an approximately negative 8.5% foreign-exchange impact. The street is looking for revenues of $16.06 billion for the quarter.

Accenture's Board of Directors has declared a 15% higher quarterly cash dividend of $1.12 per share, payable on November 15, 2022 to shareholders of record at the close of business on October 13, 2022.

The company's Board of Directors has also approved $3.0 billion in additional share repurchase authority, bringing Accenture's total outstanding authority to approximately $6.1 billion.

The company said it expects to return at least $7.1 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases in fiscal 2023.