Regional banking company First Merchants (NASDAQ: FRME) will be announcing earnings results this Monday after market hours. Here’s what investors should know.
First Merchants met analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $172.4 million, flat year on year. It was a slower quarter for the company, with a significant miss of analysts’ net interest income estimates and a narrow beat of analysts’ EPS estimates.
Is First Merchants a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.
This quarter, analysts are expecting First Merchants’s revenue to decline 11% year on year to $173.1 million, a reversal from the 18.1% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.95 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. First Merchants has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates five times over the last two years.
Looking at First Merchants’s peers in the regional banks segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. ServisFirst Bancshares delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 20.7%, beating analysts’ expectations by 5%, and Dime Community Bancshares reported revenues up 24.5%, topping estimates by 5.2%. ServisFirst Bancshares traded up 14.6% following the results while Dime Community Bancshares was also up 12.5%.
Read our full analysis of ServisFirst Bancshares’s results here and Dime Community Bancshares’s results here.
Investors in the regional banks segment have had steady hands going into earnings, with share prices up 1.9% on average over the last month. First Merchants’s stock price was unchanged during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $45.60 (compared to the current share price of $38.09).
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