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It's been a mediocre week for Wolters Kluwer N.V. (AMS:WKL) shareholders, with the stock dropping 14% to €148 in the week since its latest full-year results. Wolters Kluwer reported €5.9b in revenue, roughly in line with analyst forecasts, although statutory earnings per share (EPS) of €4.52 beat expectations, being 2.2% higher than what the analysts expected. 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. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on Wolters Kluwer after the latest results.
View our latest analysis for Wolters Kluwer
Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from Wolters Kluwer's ten analysts is for revenues of €6.38b in 2025. This would reflect a modest 7.8% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to accumulate 8.1% to €4.98. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of €6.43b and earnings per share (EPS) of €4.97 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.
There were no changes to revenue or earnings estimates or the price target of €168, suggesting that the company has met expectations in its recent result. 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 Wolters Kluwer, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at €190 and the most bearish at €137 per share. As you can see, analysts are not all in agreement on the stock's future, but the range of estimates is still reasonably narrow, which could suggest that the outcome is not totally unpredictable.
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. It's clear from the latest estimates that Wolters Kluwer's rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with the forecast 7.8% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2025 noticeably faster than its historical growth of 5.9% p.a. over the past five years. Compare this with other companies in the same industry, which are forecast to grow their revenue 4.9% annually. Factoring in the forecast acceleration in revenue, it's pretty clear that Wolters Kluwer is expected to grow much faster than its industry.