Accenture Plc (NYSE: ACN) in the fourth quarter of FY 17 has posted better than expected results. Excluding the $249 million after-tax impact of the gains on the sale of businesses, the net income for the fourth quarter of FY16 was $881 million on an adjusted basis.

ACN in the fourth quarter of FY 17 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $1.48, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of $1.47 according to Zacks Investment Research. The company had reported the adjusted revenue growth of 8 percent to $9.15 billion in the fourth quarter of FY 17, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $9.02 billion. The net revenues from “the New”, which is a digital-, cloud- and security-related services, were approximately $18 billion for FY17, an increase of about 30 percent over FY16. For the year, “the New” accounted for approximately 50 percent of total net revenues.

Moreover, the Consulting net revenues grew 7 percent in both U.S. dollars and local currency to $4.93 billion compared with the fourth quarter of FY 16. The Outsourcing net revenues were $4.22 billion, which is an increase of 9 percent in U.S. dollars and 8 percent in local currency compared with the fourth quarter of FY 16.

New bookings for the fourth quarter of FY 17 were $10.1 billion and shows a positive 0.5 percent foreign-exchange impact compared with new bookings in the fourth quarter of FY16. In this the Consulting new bookings were $5.1 billion, or 50 percent of total new bookings and Outsourcing new bookings were $5.0 billion, or 50 percent of total new bookings.

For the first quarter of FY 18, ACN expects revenue in the range of $9.1 billion to $9.35 billion. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected revenue of $9.04 billion.

In addition, ACN’s Board of Directors has declared a semi-annual cash dividend of $1.33 per share, which is an increase of 10 percent, over its previous semi-annual dividend, declared in March. In FY17, the company returned $4.22 billion to shareholders, including $1.57 billion in cash dividends and $2.65 billion in share repurchases. Further, in the fourth quarter of FY17, CAN has repurchased or redeemed 5.2 million shares, including 4.4 million shares repurchased in the open market, for a total of $657 million. Accenture’s total remaining share repurchase authority at Aug. 31, 2017 was over $3.1 billion

ACN stock has risen  15.4% in this year (Source: Google Finance).