W. P. Carey Inc. Just Recorded A 17% EPS Beat: Here's What Analysts Are Forecasting Next
Last week saw the newest second-quarter earnings release from W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC), an important milestone in the company's journey to build a stronger business. It looks like a credible result overall - although revenues of US$460m were in line with what the analysts predicted, W. P. Carey surprised by delivering a statutory profit of US$0.82 per share, a notable 17% above expectations. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. With this in mind, we've gathered the latest statutory forecasts to see what the analysts are expecting for next year.
Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from W. P. Carey's six analysts is for revenues of US$1.86b in 2026. This would reflect an okay 2.1% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are predicted to increase 2.8% to US$2.94. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$1.85b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$2.94 in 2026. 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.
See our latest analysis for W. P. Carey
The analysts reconfirmed their price target of US$79.85, 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 W. P. Carey, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$88.00 and the most bearish at US$75.00 per share. Still, with such a tight range of estimates, it suggeststhe analysts have a pretty good idea of what they think the company is worth.
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. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that W. P. Carey's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues to the end of 2026 expected to display 4.3% growth on an annualised basis. This is compared to a historical growth rate of 6.3% over the past five years. Compare this against other companies (with analyst forecasts) in the industry, which are in aggregate expected to see revenue growth of 7.1% annually. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that W. P. Carey is also expected to grow slower than other industry participants.
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. On the plus side, there were no major changes to revenue estimates; although forecasts imply they will 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.
With that in mind, we wouldn't be too quick to come to a conclusion on W. P. Carey. Long-term earnings power is much more important than next year's profits. We have forecasts for W. P. Carey going out to 2028, and you can see them free on our platform here.
We don't want to rain on the parade too much, but we did also find 2 warning signs for W. P. Carey (1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) that you need to be mindful of.
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