Last week saw the newest full-year earnings release from Marshalls plc (LON:MSLH), an important milestone in the company's journey to build a stronger business. It looks like the results were a bit of a negative overall. While revenues of UK£589m were in line with analyst predictions, statutory earnings were less than expected, missing estimates by 4.3% to hit UK£0.27 per share. 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. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on Marshalls after the latest results.
View our latest analysis for Marshalls
After the latest results, the seven analysts covering Marshalls are now predicting revenues of UK£634.6m in 2022. If met, this would reflect an okay 7.7% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to climb 18% to UK£0.33. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of UK£634.6m and earnings per share (EPS) of UK£0.33 in 2022. So it's pretty clear that, although the analysts have updated their estimates, there's been no major change in expectations for the business following the latest results.
The analysts reconfirmed their price target of UK£8.41, showing that the business is executing well and in line with expectations. Fixating on a single price target can be unwise though, since the consensus target is effectively the average of analyst price targets. As a result, some investors like to look at the range of estimates to see if there are any diverging opinions on the company's valuation. Currently, the most bullish analyst values Marshalls at UK£8.85 per share, while the most bearish prices it at UK£7.90. This is a very narrow spread of estimates, implying either that Marshalls is an easy company to value, or - more likely - the analysts are relying heavily on some key assumptions.
Taking a look at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can understand these forecasts is to see how they compare to both past performance and industry growth estimates. The analysts are definitely expecting Marshalls' growth to accelerate, with the forecast 7.7% annualised growth to the end of 2022 ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 6.3% per annum over the past five years. Compare this with other companies in the same industry, which are forecast to grow their revenue 7.8% annually. Marshalls is expected to grow at about the same rate as its industry, so it's not clear that we can draw any conclusions from its growth relative to competitors.