Westrock Coffee Company, LLC (NASDAQ:WEST) just released its latest quarterly report and things are not looking great. It was a pretty negative result overall, with revenues of US$225m missing analyst predictions by 5.8%. Worse, the business reported a statutory loss of US$0.35 per share, much larger than the analysts had forecast prior to the result. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. We thought readers would find it interesting to see the analysts latest (statutory) post-earnings forecasts for next year.
See our latest analysis for Westrock Coffee Company
Taking into account the latest results, the consensus forecast from Westrock Coffee Company's four analysts is for revenues of US$907.4m in 2023. This reflects an okay 2.2% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Statutory losses are forecast to balloon 65% to US$0.34 per share. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$927.3m and earnings per share (EPS) of US$0.018 in 2023. There looks to have been a significant drop in sentiment regarding Westrock Coffee Company's prospects after these latest results, with a minor downgrade to revenues and the analysts now forecasting a loss instead of a profit.
There was no major change to the consensus price target of US$14.00, signalling that the business is performing roughly in line with expectations, despite lower earnings per share forecasts. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. There are some variant perceptions on Westrock Coffee Company, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$15.00 and the most bearish at US$13.00 per share. This is a very narrow spread of estimates, implying either that Westrock Coffee Company is an easy company to value, or - more likely - the analysts are relying heavily on some key assumptions.
Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that Westrock Coffee Company's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues to the end of 2023 expected to display 4.4% growth on an annualised basis. This is compared to a historical growth rate of 14% over the past year. Juxtapose this against the other companies in the industry with analyst coverage, which are forecast to grow their revenues (in aggregate) 2.8% per year. So it's pretty clear that, while Westrock Coffee Company's revenue growth is expected to slow, it's still expected to grow faster than the industry itself.