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Hays plc (LON:HAS) last week reported its latest yearly results, which makes it a good time for investors to dive in and see if the business is performing in line with expectations. Revenues of UK£6.9b beat expectations by 4.1%. Unfortunately statutory earnings per share (EPS) fell well short of the mark, turning in a loss of UK£0.0031 compared to previous analyst expectations of a profit. 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. We've gathered the most recent statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their earnings models, following these results.
Check out our latest analysis for Hays
Following the recent earnings report, the consensus from nine analysts covering Hays is for revenues of UK£6.53b in 2025. This implies a small 6.0% decline in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Hays is also expected to turn profitable, with statutory earnings of UK£0.039 per share. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of UK£6.41b and earnings per share (EPS) of UK£0.042 in 2025. So it looks like there's been a small decline in overall sentiment after the recent results - there's been no major change to revenue estimates, but the analysts did make a minor downgrade to their earnings per share forecasts.
The consensus price target held steady at UK£1.09, with the analysts seemingly voting that their lower forecast earnings are not expected to lead to a lower stock price in the foreseeable future. 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 Hays, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at UK£1.30 and the most bearish at UK£0.87 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 Hays shareholders.
Looking at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can make sense of these forecasts is to see how they measure up against both past performance and industry growth estimates. These estimates imply that revenue is expected to slow, with a forecast annualised decline of 6.0% by the end of 2025. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 5.5% 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 6.0% annually for the foreseeable future. So although its revenues are forecast to shrink, this cloud does not come with a silver lining - Hays is expected to lag the wider industry.