Rayonier Earnings Preview

Motley Fool Staff
Updated

Investors hope Rayonier (NYS: RYN) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by $0.17 in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Jan. 24. Rayonier is an international forest products company that is engaged in activities associated with timberland management, the sale and entitlement of real estate, and the production and sale of high-value specialty cellulose fibers and fluff pulp.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Rayonier, with five of seven rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Rayonier better than competitor Plum Creek Timber 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 $368 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 16.7% from the year-ago quarter.

  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.49 per share. Estimates range from $0.47 to $0.52.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 97.1% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 95.8% giving it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Rayonier, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 96 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Rayonier's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Rayonier's profit has risen year over year by an average of 19.1% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight 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

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

30.9%

26.5%

28.0%

22.3%

Operating Margin

28.1%

21.8%

24.0%

18.0%

Net Margin

27.2%

15.8%

16.3%

18.8%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.

At the time thisarticle was published

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