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Investors in Baker Hughes Company (NASDAQ:BKR) had a good week, as its shares rose 6.0% to close at US$46.18 following the release of its full-year results. It looks like a credible result overall - although revenues of US$28b were what the analysts expected, Baker Hughes surprised by delivering a (statutory) profit of US$2.98 per share, an impressive 24% above what was forecast. 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.
View our latest analysis for Baker Hughes
Taking into account the latest results, Baker Hughes' 19 analysts currently expect revenues in 2025 to be US$27.9b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are expected to descend 15% to US$2.57 in the same period. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$28.0b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$2.52 in 2025. 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 US$49.02, showing that the business is executing well and in line with expectations. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. There are some variant perceptions on Baker Hughes, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$55.00 and the most bearish at US$34.00 per share. 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 Baker Hughes shareholders.
These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Baker Hughes' past performance and to peers in the same industry. We would highlight that Baker Hughes' revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 0.3% annualised growth rate until the end of 2025 being well below the historical 4.8% p.a. growth over the last five years. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 4.4% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that Baker Hughes is also expected to grow slower than other industry participants.