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Earnings Miss: Fresenius Medical Care AG Missed EPS By 51% And Analysts Are Revising Their Forecasts
It's been a good week for Fresenius Medical Care AG (ETR:FME) shareholders, because the company has just released its latest third-quarter results, and the shares gained 2.0% to €42.32. It looks like a pretty bad result, all things considered. Although revenues of €4.9b were in line with analyst predictions, statutory earnings fell badly short, missing estimates by 51% to hit €0.61 per share. The analysts typically update their forecasts at each earnings report, and we can judge from their estimates whether their view of the company has changed or if there are any new concerns to be aware of. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.
Taking into account the latest results, the most recent consensus for Fresenius Medical Care from 17 analysts is for revenues of €20.2b in 2027. If met, it would imply a reasonable 3.6% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are predicted to jump 22% to €3.87. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of €20.2b and earnings per share (EPS) of €3.87 in 2027. The consensus analysts don't seem to have seen anything in these results that would have changed their view on the business, given there's been no major change to their estimates.
Check out our latest analysis for Fresenius Medical Care
The analysts reconfirmed their price target of €41.98, showing that the business is executing well and in line with expectations. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. There are some variant perceptions on Fresenius Medical Care, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at €67.00 and the most bearish at €30.00 per share. This is a fairly broad spread of estimates, suggesting that analysts are forecasting a wide range of possible outcomes for the business.
Another way we can view these estimates is in the context of the bigger picture, such as how the forecasts stack up against past performance, and whether forecasts are more or less bullish relative to other companies in the industry. It's clear from the latest estimates that Fresenius Medical Care's rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with the forecast 2.9% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2027 noticeably faster than its historical growth of 1.6% p.a. over the past five years. Compare this with other companies in the same industry, which are forecast to see revenue growth of 4.6% annually. So it's clear that despite the acceleration in growth, Fresenius Medical Care is expected to grow meaningfully slower than the industry average.
The Bottom Line
The most obvious conclusion is that there's been no major change in the business' prospects in recent times, with the analysts holding their earnings forecasts steady, in line with previous estimates. Fortunately, the analysts also reconfirmed their revenue estimates, suggesting that it's tracking in line with expectations. Although our data does suggest that Fresenius Medical Care's revenue is expected to perform worse than the wider industry. There was no real change to the consensus price target, suggesting that the intrinsic value of the business has not undergone any major changes with the latest estimates.
Keeping that in mind, we still think that the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for investors to consider. We have forecasts for Fresenius Medical Care going out to 2028, and you can see them free on our platform here.
However, before you get too enthused, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Fresenius Medical Care that you should be aware of.
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