Monsanto Co. (MON, Financial) will release its financial results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017 Oct. 4 before the New York Stock Exchange opens.
According to analysts Monsanto is going to close the fiscal year with a quarter loss of 41 cents. If this expectation materializes, it will be a 685.7% turnaround in the company’s bottom line from the comparable of fiscal 2016.
Source: Yahoo Finance
The loss of 41 cents is an average of 15 estimates of analysts who were surveyed on Monsanto’s fourth-quarter earnings. These estimates range – as you can see from the chart above – between a loss of 50 cents (low limit) and a loss of 22 cents (high limit).
Concerning revenue for the last quarter of fiscal 2017, analysts estimate Monsanto has invoiced customers for $2.53 billion. This figure is an average of 11 estimates and represents a 1.10% decline year over year.
Source: Yahoo Finance
In terms of the entire year, analysts have projected revenue to come in at $14.43 billion, a 6.90% upside from one year ago sales, and earnings to be reported by Monsanto at $4.91 per share, a 9.6 % increase from one year ago. Both figures on projected revenue and earnings for full fiscal 2017 are averages.
Let’s have a look at Monsanto’s most important financial figures: as of the most recent quarter, Monsanto has approximately $1.56 billion in cash on hand and securities, or $3.56 per share. Total current assets and liabilities are valued $8.157 billion and $6.729 billion, for a current ratio of 1.21 versus and industry average of 1.28. The company has approximately $11.579 billion in fixed assets, goodwill, intangibles and other assets. Concerning long term liabilities, Monsanto has a debt of $7.453 billion that, plus $1.710 billion in short-term obligations, leads to a value of $9.163 billion in total debt for a total debt-equity ratio of 150.54% versus an industry average of 106.97%. Monsanto’s balance sheet is on average more leveraged than its peers.
Monsanto’s operations can generate an annual cash flow of approximately $2.85 billion to $3 billion, of which about 60% to 62% is used by the American global agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation for business growth purposes and to pay dividend to its shareholders.
Monsanto distributes a dividend of $2.16 – through quarterly payments of 54 cents – to its shareholders for a dividend yield of 1.81% according to the last market value of the company per share, which is a little bit lower than the current Standard & Poor's 500 dividend yield of 1.90%.
Monsanto is trading at $120.33 per share with a market capitalization of $52.86 billion, a price-book (P/B) ratio of 8.09, a price-earnings (P/E) ratio of 25.88, a price-sales (P/S) ratio of 3.67 and an EV-EBITDA ratio of 15.28.
The forward P/E ratio is 21.60 that, multiplied by an average EPS of $5.5 – as forecasted by analysts for full fiscal 2018Â – yields to a value of $118.80 per share. This value is below Monsanto’s last share price which is a few cents below the 52-week high price of $120.38 per share. The 52-week low price is $97.35 per share.
The average target price for Monsanto is $123.83 per share and the recommendation rating is 2.5 out of 5.
Disclosure: I have no positions in Monsanto.
