What You Need To Know About The ageas SA/NV (EBR:AGS) Analyst Downgrade Today

One thing we could say about the analysts on ageas SA/NV (EBR:AGS) - they aren't optimistic, having just made a major negative revision to their near-term (statutory) forecasts for the organization. There was a fairly draconian cut to their revenue estimates, perhaps an implicit admission that previous forecasts were much too optimistic.

Following the latest downgrade, the ten analysts covering ageas provided consensus estimates of €6.4b revenue in 2024, which would reflect a stressful 48% decline on its sales over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to soar 35% to €6.70. Before this latest update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of €7.4b and earnings per share (EPS) of €6.71 in 2024. Indeed we can see that the consensus opinion has undergone some fundamental changes following the recent consensus updates, with a substantial drop in revenues and some minor tweaks to earnings numbers.

View our latest analysis for ageas

The average price target was steady at €48.71 even though revenue estimates declined; likely suggesting the analysts place a higher value on earnings.

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. One more thing stood out to us about these estimates, and it's the idea that ageas' decline is expected to accelerate, with revenues forecast to fall at an annualised rate of 48% to the end of 2024. This tops off a historical decline of 4.1% a year over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 5.1% per year. So it's pretty clear that, while it does have declining revenues, the analysts also expect ageas to suffer worse than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that there's been no major change in sentiment, with analysts reconfirming that earnings per share are expected to continue performing in line with their prior expectations. Regrettably, they also downgraded their revenue estimates, and the latest forecasts imply the business will grow sales slower than the wider market. Given the stark change in sentiment, we'd understand if investors became more cautious on ageas after today.

With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. We have estimates - from multiple ageas analysts - going out to 2026, and you can see them free on our platform here.

Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are downgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks that insiders are buying.

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