Community Financial System, Inc. (NYSE:CBU) came out with its quarterly results last week, and we wanted to see how the business is performing and what industry forecasters think of the company following this report. It was a credible result overall, with revenues of US$227m and statutory earnings per share of US$1.16 both in line with analyst estimates, showing that Community Financial System is executing in line with expectations. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. With this in mind, we've gathered the latest statutory forecasts to see what the analysts are expecting for next year.
Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from Community Financial System's six analysts is for revenues of US$965.9m in 2027. This would reflect a meaningful 13% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to swell 16% to US$5.19. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$965.4m and earnings per share (EPS) of US$5.18 in 2027. So it's pretty clear that, although the analysts have updated their estimates, there's been no major change in expectations for the business following the latest results.
Check out our latest analysis for Community Financial System
It will come as no surprise then, to learn that the consensus price target is largely unchanged at US$69.00. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. The most optimistic Community Financial System analyst has a price target of US$75.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$65.00. This is a very narrow spread of estimates, implying either that Community Financial System is an easy company to value, or - more likely - the analysts are relying heavily on some key assumptions.
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. The analysts are definitely expecting Community Financial System's growth to accelerate, with the forecast 9.9% annualised growth to the end of 2027 ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 6.6% per annum over the past five years. Compare this with other companies in the same industry, which are forecast to grow their revenue 7.7% annually. Factoring in the forecast acceleration in revenue, it's pretty clear that Community Financial System is expected to grow much faster than its industry.
The Bottom Line
The most obvious conclusion is that there's been no major change in the business' prospects in recent times, with the analysts holding their earnings forecasts steady, in line with previous estimates. Fortunately, they also reconfirmed their revenue numbers, suggesting that it's tracking in line with expectations. Additionally, our data suggests that revenue is expected to grow faster than the wider industry. There was no real change to the consensus price target, suggesting that the intrinsic value of the business has not undergone any major changes with the latest estimates.
Keeping that in mind, we still think that the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for investors to consider. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Community Financial System going out to 2028, and you can see them free on our platform here..
It might also be worth considering whether Community Financial System's debt load is appropriate, using our debt analysis tools on the Simply Wall St platform, here.
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