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Earnings Calls: 
Accenture Second Quarter Earnings Call
Author: Rozalina Destanova
123jump.com
Last Update: 4:00 AM EDT April 03 2008


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Net revenue, which excludes reimbursements from clients for expenses such as consultants'' travel, rose to $5.61 billion from $4.75 billion. New bookings rose to $6.44 billion, including record consulting bookings of $3.79 billion. Effective tax rate was 17.8 %, driven primarily by benefits related to final determinations in the second quarter of fiscal 2008. Accenture expects profit of $2.55 per share to $2.60 per share for 2008, compared with a previous forecast of $2.36 to $2.41 per share.


Investors Question and Answers

 
Sequential Earnings Growth | Quarterly Earnings by Year | Quarterly Earnings Growth by Year

Source: Company filings    Q1:November  Q2:February  Q3:May  Q4:August
 
William Green: The pipeline is rich on both dimensions. It is hard to tell as a couple of big outsourcing things come in and can change the booking percentages dramatically. On balance, we are consistent with where we have been and where we will continue to be. I would tell you that across the market there is some acceleration and people focusing on outsourcing. Some of them take a year to get through and so there is tremendous activity around that, some of which is driven by people’s challenges around the cost management; but others just driven by the fact that that is a part of the business that has some legs and it continues to. We are not looking too much at the mix percent and what goes where because every operating group has a different mix and a different profile and when you put them together you get a composite and the thing can change a few percentage points quarter to quarter.

Rod Bourgeois (Bernstein): If you were to see a shift away from consulting and towards outsourcing, that could affect your margin profile. It sounds like from your commentary if there is a shift it is not a major one because it is not affecting your financial outlook. Is that the way to look at what is happening?

William Green: Yes, if you start at the end and back in, we started our financial outlook for the year and backup. We do not see it having an impact on our financial outlook for the year. When you get into a particular operating group it could change the dynamics within one operating group or another, but the ones that have accelerated in consulting -- and if you look at the pipeline and the demand and the activity -- the consulting stuff remains strong. We are focused and we do a lot of modeling around the mix, but right now we are relaxed about where it is.

Rod Bourgeois (Bernstein): You are posting north of 20% consulting bookings growth. Do you need to re-calibrate expectations?

William Green: We were not surprised at the consulting results this quarter, because we have been looking at them coming and we think were going to be consistent.

Rod Bourgeois (Bernstein): Last quarter the free cash flow guidance came down because of a one-time item and now you are reinstating that back up. Where is the cash flow guidance improvement coming from - is it related to DSOs or something else?

Pamela Craig: We thought the DSO performance this quarter was strong, so we factor that in as well as we are forecasting lower cash tax payments.

Andrew Steinerman (Bear Stearns): Could you give some color under the surface on gross margins?

Pamela Craig: Gross margins are relatively flat and the underlying margins are as well. As we look at all of the different parts of our business in different parts of the world, there are some things that are up and there are some things that are down and overall, they are flat. If you look absorbing the payroll increases this year that is something that we do all year long and we are on track to fully do that as well as handle the lower utilization.

Andrew Steinerman (Bear Stearns): Could you just give a little more color on sales and marketing?

Stephen Rohleder: We have consciously decided not only in public service, but some of the others to spend more on the S part. On the G&A part, we are going to continue to focus on driving that cost down. We were down 10 basis points for the quarter so we have still got programs underway. We have got some specific targets that we are focused on and we are going to continue to drive that down over the next two quarters.

Ed Caso (Wachovia): You did five small acquisitions that closed in the second fiscal quarter. How much did that contribute and what is that impact?

Pamela Craig: We did four in the quarter. The contribution in the last four quarters of the new acquisitions in the comparison to last year is still less than 1% of our revenue growth rate.

Ed Caso (Wachovia): You used more positive tone in pricing in recent quarters. Is that still holding?

Stephen Rohleder: Yes. It stabilized. There are still pockets that we are focused on, on trying to drive pricing, primarily in Europe. I am pleased with the North America progress that we have made in this quarter but I would characterize it as stable right now.

Moshe Katri (Cowen and Company): Do you attribute the strong result in SI business on the revenue growth side or the booking side?

William Green: The first and most important is making sure we are out there with offerings that are relevant to the market demand today. In some of the sectors that are more challenged than others, we are bringing different capabilities to the market than we were six or 12 months ago. The second thing is there is a flight to quality. People are looking hard at whether your consolidation point on vendors, but people are looking at two things. One is the quality of the provider and the second is this thing that you are always focused on is this must-do. I think we play in the must-do space so for the money that is available, the things that we are involved with are continuing to go and we still sit here without cancellations or deferrals as we did last quarter. The other thing is because of the uncertainty and some of this is what shows up in our sales costs is because of the uncertainty, we do not just sit here and see what happens. We dial it up. We have been out there pushing. We have been out there what we call catalyze and demand. We are creating our own demand. We know how to do that and it is something we are focused on and if one of the by-products is that some of the operating groups are now saying they are not going to have enough capability to deliver and so that is what we all do to just keep the balance between supply and demand. On balance we are selling the right stuff to the right clients and it is relevant to what they are trying to do to improve their business performance and all that works in our favor.

Stephen Rohleder: The relationships that we have are contributing to the bookings growth. If I look at where our growth came from in terms of the bookings and the results, well over 80% of the bookings come from what we call foundation clients. That is important, because it means we have a long-term relationship with that client. We are able to go in, shape an opportunity to drive business results and convince them to contract with us to deliver those results. I was in India about a month ago and I told the group there, we are not sitting by the phone waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for the opportunities. We are out there creating them and the fact that we have this incredible client base with deep relationships helps us to shape business opportunities and to drive them to results.

Moshe Katri (Cowen and Company): Was there a greater bonus accrual during the quarter that impacted gross margin?

Pamela Craig: We do not comment on annual bonus. I will tell you that we did accrue some, but I am not going to say anything more about that.
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