The Weir Group PLC (LON:WEIR) just released its latest yearly results and things are looking bullish. Results were good overall, with revenues beating analyst predictions by 6.1% to hit UK£2.5b. Statutory earnings per share (EPS) came in at UK£0.82, some 7.1% above whatthe analysts had 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. We thought readers would find it interesting to see the analysts latest (statutory) post-earnings forecasts for next year.

Check out our latest analysis for Weir Group

Taking into account the latest results, Weir Group's 15 analysts currently expect revenues in 2023 to be UK£2.50b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are predicted to swell 13% to UK£0.93. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of UK£2.45b and earnings per share (EPS) of UK£0.92 in 2023. 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.

It will come as no surprise then, to learn that the consensus price target is largely unchanged at UK£20.39. 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. The most optimistic Weir Group analyst has a price target of UK£24.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at UK£11.50. Note the wide gap in analyst price targets? This implies to us that there is a fairly broad range of possible scenarios for the underlying business.

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. From these estimates it looks as though the analysts expect the years of declining sales to come to an end, given the flat revenue forecast out to 2023. That would be a definite improvement, given that the past five years have seen sales shrink 2.0% annually. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 6.0% per year. So it's pretty clear that, although revenues are improving, Weir Group is still expected to grow slower than the industry.