Industry Analysts Just Made A Substantial Upgrade To Their Unipol Gruppo S.p.A. (BIT:UNI) Revenue Forecasts

Unipol Gruppo S.p.A. (BIT:UNI) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's forecasts. The consensus estimated revenue numbers rose, with their view now clearly much more bullish on the company's business prospects.

Following the latest upgrade, the seven analysts covering Unipol Gruppo provided consensus estimates of €14b revenue in 2022, which would reflect a small 5.6% decline on its sales over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to step up 16% to €1.08. Before this latest update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of €11b and earnings per share (EPS) of €1.09 in 2022. It seems analyst sentiment has certainly become more bullish on revenues, even though they haven't changed their view on earnings per share.

See our latest analysis for Unipol Gruppo

It may not be a surprise to see that the analysts have reconfirmed their price target of €5.81, implying that the uplift in sales is not expected to greatly contribute to Unipol Gruppo's valuation in the near term. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. Currently, the most bullish analyst values Unipol Gruppo at €7.00 per share, while the most bearish prices it at €4.70. There are definitely some different views on the stock, but the range of estimates is not wide enough as to imply that the situation is unforecastable, in our view.

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. Over the past five years, revenues have declined around 0.2% annually. Worse, forecasts are essentially predicting the decline to accelerate, with the estimate for an annualised 7.3% decline in revenue until the end of 2022. Compare this against analyst estimates for companies in the broader industry, which suggest that revenues (in aggregate) are expected to grow 3.4% annually. So it's pretty clear that, while it does have declining revenues, the analysts also expect Unipol Gruppo 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. Pleasantly, analysts also upgraded their revenue estimates, and their forecasts suggest the business is expected to grow slower than the wider market. Given that analysts appear to be expecting substantial improvement in the sales pipeline, now could be the right time to take another look at Unipol Gruppo.

Even so, the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for the value creation of shareholders. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Unipol Gruppo going out to 2024, 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 upgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks 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.