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Last week saw the newest first-quarter earnings release from Lancaster Colony Corporation (NASDAQ:LANC), an important milestone in the company's journey to build a stronger business. Revenues of US$467m were in line with forecasts, although statutory earnings per share (EPS) came in below expectations at US$1.62, missing estimates by 2.7%. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.
Check out our latest analysis for Lancaster Colony
Taking into account the latest results, Lancaster Colony's seven analysts currently expect revenues in 2025 to be US$1.91b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are predicted to grow 16% to US$6.66. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$1.91b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$6.74 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 US$196, 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 Lancaster Colony, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$227 and the most bearish at US$183 per share. With such a narrow range of valuations, the analysts apparently share similar views on what they think the business is worth.
One way to get more context on these forecasts is to look at how they compare to both past performance, and how other companies in the same industry are performing. We would highlight that Lancaster Colony's revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 2.4% annualised growth rate until the end of 2025 being well below the historical 8.7% p.a. growth over the last five years. Compare this to the 137 other companies in this industry with analyst coverage, which are forecast to grow their revenue at 2.8% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it looks like Lancaster Colony is forecast to grow at about the same rate as the wider industry.