Accenture (ACN): 'Consulting' with a buyback expert

David Fried is a leading authority on corporate buybacks, focused exclusively on companies that are involved in repurchasing their own shares.

One of the latest 'buys' in his aptly-named The Buyback Letter, is consulting and outsourcing firm Accenture (NYSE: ACN). Here's the advisor's review.

"Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, collaborating with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments.

"They use industry knowledge, expertise and technological capabilities to help worldwide clients enter new markets, increase revenues in existing markets, improve operational performance and deliver their products and services more effectively and efficiently.

"Accenture has extensive relationships with the world's leading companies and governments and works with organizations of all sizes—including 94 of the Fortune Global 100 and more than two-thirds of the Fortune Global 500.

"Seemingly, they have some very satisfied customers -- for example, all of their top 100 clients in fiscal year 2007, based on revenue, have been clients for at least five years, and 85 have been clients for at least 10 years.

"With more than 178,000 people in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of $19.70 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2007. Recently, Accenture reported a 37% jump in fiscal second quarter profit, based on more consulting work coming their way.

"It seems that a tough economy has more clients relying on outsourcers to run their businesses; more outsourcing means larger coffers for Accenture. The company earned $406.6 million (64 cents per share), in Q2, compared with profit of $296.7 million (47 cents per share), in the fiscal second quarter of 2007.

"Gross revenue surged 17% to $6.06 billion from $5.17 billion. Net revenue climbed to $5.61 billion from $4.75 billion. The company booked $6.44 billion of new business in the quarter, fueled by record bookings for consulting work.

"Accenture generated more than $2 billion in free cash flow over the last 12 months. A consistently robust repurchaser, Accenture has promised to buy back $3 billion in shares. Accenture has reduced shares outstanding by 7.1% in the past 12 months."