Bolloré SE (EPA:BOL) Analysts Are Reducing Their Forecasts For This Year

Today is shaping up negative for Bolloré SE (EPA:BOL) shareholders, with the analysts delivering a substantial negative revision to this year's forecasts. Revenue and earnings per share (EPS) forecasts were both revised downwards, with analysts seeing grey clouds on the horizon.

Following the latest downgrade, the current consensus, from the twin analysts covering Bolloré, is for revenues of €16b in 2023, which would reflect a painful 22% reduction in Bolloré's sales over the past 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are anticipated to sink 19% to €0.025 in the same period. Before this latest update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of €19b and earnings per share (EPS) of €0.089 in 2023. Indeed, we can see that the analysts are a lot more bearish about Bolloré's prospects, administering a substantial drop in revenue estimates and slashing their EPS estimates to boot.

View our latest analysis for Bolloré

Analysts made no major changes to their price target of €6.77, suggesting the downgrades are not expected to have a long-term impact on Bolloré's valuation. There's another way to think about price targets though, and that's to look at the range of price targets put forward by analysts, because a wide range of estimates could suggest a diverse view on possible outcomes for the business. The most optimistic Bolloré analyst has a price target of €7.40 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at €5.70. The narrow spread of estimates could suggest that the business' future is relatively easy to value, or that the analysts have a clear view on its prospects.

Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. Over the past five years, revenues have declined around 4.4% annually. Worse, forecasts are essentially predicting the decline to accelerate, with the estimate for an annualised 39% decline in revenue until the end of 2023. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 1.1% per year. So it's pretty clear that, while it does have declining revenues, the analysts also expect Bolloré to suffer worse than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that analysts cut their earnings per share estimates, expecting a clear decline in business conditions. Unfortunately analysts also downgraded their revenue estimates, and industry data suggests that Bolloré's revenues are expected to grow slower than the wider market. The lack of change in the price target is puzzling in light of the downgrade but, with a serious decline expected this year, we wouldn't be surprised if investors were a bit wary of Bolloré.

With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. We have analyst estimates for Bolloré going out as far as 2025, and you can see them free on our platform here.

Another way to search for interesting companies that could be reaching an inflection point is to track whether management are buying or selling, with our free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.