Wow ! Accenture Wow !

Back then, when I was a broker at Salomon Smith Barney, the firm was part of the new IPO in Accenture.

This was the new name for Andersen Consulting after the partners voted to become independant from Arthur Andersen

My job was to be the broker contact for the Australian partners and anything involving their Stock, Options and ESOP. The main focus was the “Founders Shares” which were priced at 1 cent.  

The IPO was priced at $14.50 per share on July 18, 2001

Back then Accenture’s numbers looked like this;

Revenues $10 billion

Net Profit: $2.4 billion

Number of employees: 75,000

Market Cap: $14 billion

The chart below shows Accenture stock price is now trading at $415.

I remember the IPO day well and 20 years on, some of those Australian partners are still clients or remain within my network.

While some have sold all their holdings, I’m sure many have divested along the way and perhaps there are those who haven’t sold a single share.

Today’s Accenture numbers are;

Revenues $51 billion

Net Profit $6 billion

Number of employees: 674,000

Market Cap: $272 billion

It’s simply amazing to watch the stock price of this company rise 20 fold over the past 20 years and furthermore, outperform the S&P 500 by a factor of 10, as seen in the 2nd chart presented below.

Incidentally, Accenture’s stock has tripled over the past 20 months and its price rise now resembles a parabola along with a few indicators spitting out Overbought signals.

I guess the biggest problem selling now is finally triggering a taxable event.

Finally, it’s nice to see a stock appreciate and adding most of its value in its guise as a public company.

More on this later.

December 31, 2021

by Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au