Alta Earnings: What To Look For From ALTG

Equipment distribution company Alta Equipment Group (NYSE:ALTG) will be announcing earnings results tomorrow afternoon. Here’s what investors should know.

Alta missed analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $422.6 million, down 5.8% year on year. It was a disappointing quarter for the company, with a significant miss of analysts’ revenue estimates and a significant miss of analysts’ adjusted operating income estimates.

This quarter, the market is expecting Alta’s revenue to be flat year on year, improving from the 4.5% decrease it recorded in the same quarter last year.

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. Alta has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates multiple times over the last two years.

Looking at Alta’s peers in the specialty equipment distributors segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. SiteOne delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 3.2%, missing analysts’ expectations by 0.9%, and Herc reported revenues up 27.1%, falling short of estimates by 3.8%. SiteOne traded up 7% following the results while Herc was down 15%.

There has been positive sentiment among investors in the specialty equipment distributors segment, with share prices up 5.3% on average over the last month. Alta is up 3.6% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $9.95 (compared to the current share price of $6.86).