Accenture has spent roughly $515 million on acquisitions so far in fiscal 2019, and expects to spend $1.5 billion overall on deals this fiscal year, CFO KC McClure and interim CEO David Rowland revealed during the IT consulting company's Q2 fiscal 2019 earnings call today.
The deals align with "The New" -- an Accenture strategy that pushes the company deeper into digital, cloud and security services.
With an eye toward those markets, the company has acquired 15 businesses for a combined $515 million in the first half of fiscal 2019 (about $34 million per deal, on average) and has roughly $1 billion to spend on buyout targets in the second half of the fiscal year, McClure revealed.
Accenture Acquisitions: The 2019 Deals So Far
The deals so far this year, Rowland added, involved roughly:
- seven acquisitions in Accenture Interactive;
- three in Industry X.O;
- four in Technology -- including an emphasis on SAP and Oracle platforms.
"If you look at Technology, three of those were directly tied to deepening our skills and the platforms," Rowland said. "So I think there were a couple in Oracle and one SAP, as an example. There was another one around data and analytics. And then we had several vertical specific acquisitions, several in financial services, as an example."
Rowland has been interim CEO since former leader Pierre Nanterme stepped down in January 2019, and died a few weeks later from cancer. Nanterme played a key role in driving "the new" strategy and dozens of Accenture acquisitions in recent years.
Accenture Financial Results
The acquisition strategy appears to be treating Accenture well. The company delivered stronger-than-expected financial results for its Q2 of fiscal 2019. Among the highlights: Revenue grew 5 percent to $10.5 billion, and net income was $1.14 billion, up from $919.5 million.
Accenture has been acquiring cloud, security and digital consulting agencies worldwide.
