Last week saw the newest annual earnings release from PageGroup plc (LON:PAGE), an important milestone in the company's journey to build a stronger business. It was a pretty mixed result, with revenues beating expectations to hit UK£2.0b. Statutory earnings fell 5.2% short of analyst forecasts, reaching UK£0.24 per share. Earnings are an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance, look at what the analysts are forecasting for next year, and see if there's been a change in sentiment towards the company. We've gathered the most recent statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their earnings models, following these results.

See our latest analysis for PageGroup  earnings-and-revenue-growth

Taking into account the latest results, PageGroup's eight analysts currently expect revenues in 2024 to be UK£2.00b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are expected to decrease 5.5% to UK£0.23 in the same period. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of UK£1.85b and earnings per share (EPS) of UK£0.24 in 2024. Overall it looks as though the analysts were a bit mixed on the latest results. Although there was a to revenue, the consensus also made a minor downgrade to its earnings per share forecasts.

There's been no major changes to the price target of UK£4.89, suggesting that the impact of higher forecast revenue and lower earnings won't result in a meaningful change to the business' valuation. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. The most optimistic PageGroup analyst has a price target of UK£6.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at UK£4.10. Analysts definitely have varying views on the business, but the spread of estimates is not wide enough in our view to suggest that extreme outcomes could await PageGroup shareholders.



These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the PageGroup's past performance and to peers in the same industry. These estimates imply that revenue is expected to slow, with a forecast annualised decline of 0.5% by the end of 2024. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 6.7% over the last five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the same industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 5.8% annually for the foreseeable future. It's pretty clear that PageGroup's revenues are expected to perform substantially worse than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The biggest concern is that the analysts reduced their earnings per share estimates, suggesting business headwinds could lay ahead for PageGroup. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, although our data indicates it 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.

Following on from that line of thought, we think that the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. We have forecasts for PageGroup going out to 2026, and you can see them free on our platform here.

It is also worth noting that we have found 2 warning signs for PageGroup that you need to take into consideration.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.