Storebrand ASA (OB:STB) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's statutory forecasts. The revenue forecast for this year has experienced a facelift, with the analysts now much more optimistic on its sales pipeline.
After the upgrade, the consensus from Storebrand's seven analysts is for revenues of kr11b in 2025, which would reflect a concerning 68% decline in sales compared to the last year of performance. Statutory earnings per share are anticipated to plummet 27% to kr9.49 in the same period. Before this latest update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of kr9.8b and earnings per share (EPS) of kr9.55 in 2025. There's clearly been a surge in bullishness around the company's sales pipeline, even if there's no real change in earnings per share forecasts.
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It may not be a surprise to see that the analysts have reconfirmed their price target of kr130, implying that the uplift in sales is not expected to greatly contribute to Storebrand's valuation in the near term.
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 8.5% annually. Worse, forecasts are essentially predicting the decline to accelerate, with the estimate for an annualised 78% decline in revenue until the end of 2025. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 5.7% per year. So while a broad number of companies are forecast to grow, unfortunately Storebrand is expected to see its sales affected worse than other companies in the 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. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting revenues 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 Storebrand.
With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Storebrand going out to 2027, 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 with high insider ownership.
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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.