Snack food company Utz Brands (NYSE:UTZ) will be reporting results this Thursday before market open. Here’s what investors should know.
Utz beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 0.7% last quarter, reporting revenues of $377.8 million, up 3.4% year on year. It was a strong quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates and a solid beat of analysts’ adjusted operating income estimates.
Is Utz a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Utz’s revenue to be flat year on year at $342.6 million, improving from the 3.1% decrease it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.25 per share.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Utz has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates three times over the last two years.
Looking at Utz’s peers in the shelf-stable food segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Hershey delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 7%, beating analysts’ expectations by 3.8%, and BellRing Brands reported flat revenue, topping estimates by 6.7%. Hershey traded up 12.5% following the results while BellRing Brands was down 13.4%.
Read our full analysis of Hershey’s results here and BellRing Brands’s results here.
There has been positive sentiment among investors in the shelf-stable food segment, with share prices up 6% on average over the last month. Utz is up 11.5% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $14 (compared to the current share price of $11.10).
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