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Last week, you might have seen that RATIONAL Aktiengesellschaft (ETR:RAA) released its quarterly result to the market. The early response was not positive, with shares down 3.4% to €873 in the past week. RATIONAL reported €294m in revenue, roughly in line with analyst forecasts, although statutory earnings per share (EPS) of €5.42 beat expectations, being 4.5% higher than what the analysts expected. 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. We thought readers would find it interesting to see the analysts latest (statutory) post-earnings forecasts for next year.
View our latest analysis for RATIONAL
Taking into account the latest results, the consensus forecast from RATIONAL's 14 analysts is for revenues of €1.29b in 2025. This reflects a solid 10% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to rise 8.7% to €22.57. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of €1.29b and earnings per share (EPS) of €22.56 in 2025. 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.
The analysts reconfirmed their price target of €776, 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. There are some variant perceptions on RATIONAL, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at €995 and the most bearish at €590 per share. There are definitely some different views on the stock, but the range of estimates is not wide enough as to imply that the situation is unforecastable, in our view.
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. We would highlight that RATIONAL's revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 8.2% annualised growth rate until the end of 2025 being well below the historical 11% p.a. growth over the last five years. Juxtapose this against the other companies in the industry with analyst coverage, which are forecast to grow their revenues (in aggregate) 4.5% per year. Even after the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that RATIONAL is also expected to grow faster than the wider industry.