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Last week, you might have seen that Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) released its third-quarter result to the market. The early response was not positive, with shares down 7.4% to US$190 in the past week. The result was positive overall - although revenues of US$2.6b were in line with what the analysts predicted, Cintas surprised by delivering a statutory profit of US$1.13 per share, modestly greater than expected. 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. 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 Cintas from 16 analysts is for revenues of US$11.0b in 2026. If met, it would imply a notable 8.8% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to rise 10.0% to US$4.83. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of US$11.0b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$4.82 in 2026. 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 Cintas
The analysts reconfirmed their price target of US$207, showing that the business is executing well and in line with expectations. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. There are some variant perceptions on Cintas, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$245 and the most bearish at US$163 per share. This shows there is still a bit of diversity in estimates, but analysts don't appear to be totally split on the stock as though it might be a success or failure situation.
These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Cintas' past performance and to peers in the same industry. We can infer from the latest estimates that forecasts expect a continuation of Cintas'historical trends, as the 7.0% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2026 is roughly in line with the 8.4% annual growth over the past five years. Juxtapose this against our data, which suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the industry are forecast to see their revenues grow 6.7% per year. It's clear that while Cintas' revenue growth is expected to continue on its current trajectory, it's only expected to grow in line with the industry itself.