Broker snap: Astra's results could have been worse, says Panmure Gordon

31st Jan 2013 09:16

Panmure Gordon has kept its 'hold' rating and 3,000p target price for pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca after the firm's final results, saying that figures were not as bad as they could have been."Overall Q4 2012 results were more resilient than expected, continuing the trend seen across the sector of a much better Q4 than Q3 previously," said analyst Savvas Neophytou.Fourth-quarter evens slipped 15% to $7.3bn but still came in ahead of Panmure's $7.0bn estimate and the $7.2bn consensus forecasts. Meanwhile, core earnings per share (EPS) fell 9% to $1.56, above Panmure and consensus estimates (at $1.32 and $1.40, respectively).However, Neophytou pointed out that consensus estimates for 2013 are likely to come down."The company provided FY2013 outlook which specifically implies revenues of $25.7-26.6bn. Core-EPS guidance was verbose, nonetheless given where consensus is currently ($5.78) and the lack of explicit warning on consensus we assume core EPS will decline in the range of 17-25%, which would compute some $5.20-5.70. We had previously expected outlook in the region of $5.60-5.80. Therefore we expect downgrades to consensus."With the stock having had a good run recently, the broker believes that shares are "up with events" for the moment, with the discount to the European pharmaceutical sector justified given "perceived increased forecast risk".Shares were down 5.06% at 2,993p by 10:52 on Thursday.BC