Tidewater Earnings Preview

Motley Fool Staff
Updated

Investors are bracing for the worst and waiting to see if Tidewater (NYS: TDW) will fall short of Wall Street forecasts for the third consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. Tidewater provides offshore service vessels and marine support services to the global offshore energy industry.

What analysts say

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Tidewater, with nine of 12 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Tidewater better than competitor Bristow Group overall. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.

  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $250.8 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 4.4% from the year-ago quarter.

  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.41 per share. Estimates range from $0.37 to $0.45.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 98.6% granting it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 96.8% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced Tidewater and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 243 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Tidewater's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management
Tidewater's income has fallen year over year by an average of 53.1%. Revenue has fallen for the past three quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 4.3 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue fell 2.3% while cost of sales rose 5.2% to $154.8 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q4

Q3

Q2

Q1

Gross Margin

39.1%

39.9%

36.3%

40.9%

Operating Margin

13.6%

13.9%

8.7%

15.1%

Net Margin

4.7%

12.6%

7.3%

15.2%

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At the time thisarticle was published

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