Cal-Maine Foods, NASDAQ: CALM, Announces Third Quarter 2016 Financial Results, EPS $1.33

Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: CALM) released its third quarter 2016 financial results this morning, which included gross revenues of $449.8 million, missing the Wall Street analysts’ consensus estimate of $463.5 million by 2.3 percent. Cal-Maine reported earnings per share of $1.33, beating the consensus of $0.99 by 34.0 percent.

The revenue figure represents year-over-year growth of 2.80 percent. The EPS figure represents year-over-year growth of 26.67 percent.

No conference call for the company appears to be scheduled. Cal-Maine Foods has recently published an investor presentation, which includes highlights of the company’s operations, including year-to-date 2016 sales growth of 57.1 percent and its claim to 23 percent of “U.S. fresh shell egg” market share.

Cal-Maine missed Wall Street consensus EPS numbers over the past four quarters, but never by more than 8.70 percent. Most recently, in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, ending in November 2015, Cal-Maine reported EPS of $2.26, when the street was looking for $2.40; a 5.8 percent miss.

Currently, analysts are forecasting full-year 2016 revenue of $2.04 billion representing growth of 29.60 percent from 2015. Analysts are calling for full-year 2017 revenue of $1.85 billion; a 9.60 percent slowdown from 2015 forecasts.

Going into this morning’s report, analysts were calling for CALM EPS growth of -12.60 percent in the fourth quarter and 111.10 percent for the full-2016 year. Analysts see EPS falling by 34.30 percent in 2017, and falling by 10 percent annually over the coming five years.

Over the past 90-day period, analysts’ full-year 2016 EPS estimates have been cut from $8.23 to $7.03, and full-year 2017 estimates from $5.67 to $4.62, markdowns of 14.58 percent and 18.52 percent respectively. Today’s report by Cal-Maine will likely result in revisions to these estimates.

Cal-Maine Foods is a member of the “Food – Major Diversified” industry that “produces, grades, packages, markets, and distributes shell eggs. It offers specialty shell eggs, such as nutritionally enhanced, cage free, organic, and brown eggs under the Egg-Land?s Best, Land O? Lake, Farmhouse, and 4-Grain brand names, as well as under private labels,” employs 2,749 people, and is headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi, as reported by Yahoo Finance.

As of the end of the second quarter of 2016, Cal-Maine reported a trailing-twelve-month profit margin of 17.49 percent and an operating margin of 26.30 percent. The food processor reported a return on equity of 46.40 percent.

Going into this morning’s report, Cal-Maine reported a cash position of $420.33 million and debt of $28.77 million. The company reported a debt to equity ratio of 3.29 percent.

Over the past 10 years, CALM stock is up 1,265.67 percent compared with 54.09 percent for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI). Over the past five years, CALM shares are up 241.65 percent compared with 41.52 percent for the Dow, and over the past 12 months, CALM is up 29.14 percent, while the Dow is down 0.92 percent.

Cal-Maine pays an annual dividend of $3.00, currently yielding 5.99 percent.

CALM stock has a 52-week range of $37.51 to $63.25. Shares are currently trading 20.76 percent below their all-time high of $63.25 printed on October 19, 2015.

Currently, five brokers provide buy/sell recommendations on CALM stock. The mean recommendation is 2.6, where 1.0 is a strong buy and 5.0 is a strong sell. The mean price target for CALM shares is $57.20, while the median is $59.00; price targets range from $50 to $62.

Major institutional owners of CALM include The Vanguard Group, who owned 8.13 of the outstanding stock at December 31, 2015; Royce & Associates, who owned 5.98 percent; AJO, who owned 5.87 percent; Lsv Asset Management, who owned 5.70 percent; and BlackRock Fund Advisors, who owned 4.55 percent.

Cal-Maine Foods was founded in 1957 and is headed by 59-yeaer-old Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Adolphus Baker and Chief Financial Officer Timothy Dawson. Since 1989, the egg producer has completed 18 acquisitions and his been publicly traded since 1996. The company witnessed its highest-ever sales in 2015 with $1.6 billion. The current 2016-estimate of $2.04 billion suggests that the company will likely see that record broken again.

[Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images]