Investors in Evotec SE (ETR:EVT) had a good week, as its shares rose 4.5% to close at €5.80 following the release of its half-yearly results. It was a pretty bad result overall; while revenues were in line with expectations at €391m, statutory losses exploded to €0.54 per share. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. So we gathered the latest post-earnings forecasts to see what estimates suggest is in store for next year.

Check out our latest analysis for Evotec

Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from Evotec's twelve analysts is for revenues of €829.8m in 2024. This would reflect a modest 5.2% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Losses are predicted to fall substantially, shrinking 54% to €0.45. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of €866.8m and losses of €0.36 per share in 2024. While this year's revenue estimates dropped there was also a considerable increase to loss per share expectations, suggesting the consensus has a bit of a mixed view on the stock.

The consensus price target fell 14% to €15.40, with the analysts clearly concerned about the company following the weaker revenue and earnings outlook. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. There are some variant perceptions on Evotec, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at €30.00 and the most bearish at €4.00 per share. So we wouldn't be assigning too much credibility to analyst price targets in this case, because there are clearly some widely different views on what kind of performance this business can generate. With this in mind, we wouldn't rely too heavily the consensus price target, as it is just an average and analysts clearly have some deeply divergent views on the business.

Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. We would highlight that Evotec's revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 11% annualised growth rate until the end of 2024 being well below the historical 15% p.a. growth over the last five years. Compare this to the 46 other companies in this industry with analyst coverage, which are forecast to grow their revenue at 11% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it looks like Evotec is forecast to grow at about the same rate as the wider industry.