UTi Worldwide Earnings Preview

Motley Fool Staff
Updated

UTi Worldwide (NAS: UTIW) came in right in line with the Street's expectations last quarter, but investors are hoping that it will beat them this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. UTi Worldwide provides air and ocean freight forwarding, contract logistics, customs brokerage, distribution, inbound logistics, truckload brokerage, and other supply chain management services.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Half of analysts think investors should stand pat on UTi Worldwide while the remaining half rate the stock as a buy. Analysts like UTi Worldwide better than competitor Pacer International overall. Two out of 10 analysts rate Pacer International a buy compared to seven of 14 for UTi Worldwide. Wall Street has warmed to the stock over the past three months, with analysts increasing their endorsement from hold to moderate buy.

  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.25 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 8.7% from the year-ago quarter.

  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.22 per share. Estimates range from $0.18 to $0.24.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 97.4% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 91.2% granting it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced UTi Worldwide, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 56 posts in the past 30 days. UTi Worldwide's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
UTi Worldwide's profit has risen year over year by an average of more than threefold over the past five quarters.

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

Q1

Q4

Q3

Q2

Gross Margin

34.3%

35.3%

33.9%

32.9%

Operating Margin

1.6%

2.3%

3.7%

2.9%

Net Margin

0.7%

1.3%

2.2%

1.6%

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At the time thisarticle was published

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