NEW YORK (Bloomberg) ? Shares of Accenture Ltd., the world?s second-largest consultant, fell the most in eight months after the company said it expects losses of $450 million from contracts with the UK National Health Service.

Higher-than-expected costs and delays in contracts worth $3.3 billion forced the company to establish a $450 million reserve for losses. The contracts were awarded in December, 2003.

The problems snapped a four-year streak of higher quarterly net income.

The Hamilton, Bermuda-based company, which installs and manages computer systems, won two contracts to modernise and oversee the accounts of UK health-care patients in eastern and northeastern England.

?I was hearing of some of these problems, but I hoped things were more under control,? said Cindy Shaw, a San Francisco-based analyst at Moors & Cabot Inc., who rates the shares ?buy? and doesn?t own them. ?It?s a significant portion of their earnings.?

Shares of Accenture fell $1.79, or 5.8 percent, to $29.11 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the biggest one-day drop since July 7. The shares are little changed this year after today?s decline.

Accenture reported its second-quarter results yesterday, two days sooner than planned, because of the contract woes.

Net income fell to $69.7 million, or 11 cents a share, from $209.8 million, or 35 cents, a year earlier, Accenture said yesterday in a statement. Sales gained 6.5 percent to $4.49 billion in the period ended February 28.

Excluding the National Health Service contract problems, the company is meeting its targets, Chief Executive Officer William Green said after the report.

?There is no doubt that NHS is a serious situation that demands immediate attention,? chief financial officer Michael McGrath told analysts on the call.

Accenture forecasts third-quarter sales of $4.3 billion to $4.5 billion, compared with the average of $4.46 billion estimated by 21 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.