New Forecasts: Here's What Analysts Think The Future Holds For Fope S.p.A. (BIT:FPE)

Fope S.p.A. (BIT:FPE) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's forecasts. The consensus statutory numbers for both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) increased, with their view clearly much more bullish on the company's business prospects.

Following the upgrade, the most recent consensus for Fope from its two analysts is for revenues of €51m in 2022 which, if met, would be a major 25% increase on its sales over the past 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are presumed to leap 32% to €1.22. Before this latest update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of €45m and earnings per share (EPS) of €1.06 in 2022. There has definitely been an improvement in perception recently, with the analysts substantially increasing both their earnings and revenue estimates.

Check out our latest analysis for Fope

With these upgrades, we're not surprised to see that the analysts have lifted their price target 27% to €25.50 per share. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. There are some variant perceptions on Fope, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at €31.00 and the most bearish at €20.00 per share. Analysts definitely have varying views on the business, but the spread of estimates is not wide enough in our view to suggest that extreme outcomes could await Fope shareholders.

Taking a look at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can understand these forecasts is to see how they compare to both past performance and industry growth estimates. It's clear from the latest estimates that Fope's rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with the forecast 25% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2022 noticeably faster than its historical growth of 5.6% p.a. over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to grow their revenue at 8.5% per year. It seems obvious that, while the growth outlook is brighter than the recent past, the analysts also expect Fope to grow faster than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that analysts upgraded their earnings per share estimates for this year, expecting improving business conditions. Fortunately, analysts also upgraded their revenue estimates, and our data indicates sales are expected to perform better than the wider market. Given that the consensus looks almost universally bullish, with a substantial increase to forecasts and a higher price target, Fope could be worth investigating further.

Still, the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. At least one analyst has provided forecasts out to 2024, which can be seen for 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.