In a report released today, Timothy Ramey from Pivotal Research maintained a Sell rating on Flowers Foods (FLO), with a price target of $16. The company’s shares opened today at $19.38.
Ramey said:
“We were delusional to think Flowers could break out of its old ways. This result is just awful, yet it mirrors the pattern of most of the past ten years – start the year bullish – end the year expecting $0.90. This time it’s worse – the $0.90 comes with the benefit of a substantial tax cut. FLO EBIT will be lower in 2018 than it was in 2013. This is what a category in secular decline looks like. DSD Segment sales rose 0.5%; Price/mix was +2.5%; Volume was -2.0% on a tough comp with last year’s hurricanes (didn’t we have two this year?). Branded retail sales were flat; store-brand sales rose 3.4%; non-retail sales fell 6.7%. Adjusted EBIT margin fell 140 BP to 8.6%; higher COGS and labor pressures partially offset by tighter cost controls.”
According to TipRanks.com, Ramey is a 4-star analyst with an average return of 10.9% and a 62.2% success rate. Ramey covers the Consumer Goods sector, focusing on stocks such as Constellation Brands Inc, Post Holdings Inc, and Brown-Forman B.
The word on The Street in general, suggests a Moderate Sell analyst consensus rating for Flowers Foods with a $17.50 average price target.
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Flowers Foods’ market cap is currently $4.04B and has a P/E ratio of 29.06. The company has a Price to Book ratio of 3.12.
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Flowers Foods, Inc. engages in the manufacture and sale of bakery products. It operates through the Direct-Store-Delivery (DSD) and Warehouse Delivery segments. The DSD segment produces fresh breads, buns, rolls, tortillas, and cakes sold by a network of independent distributors to retail and foodservice customers.
