H&R Block to Release Fiscal 4th-Quarter Results

Analysts forecast 11.7% upside in the EPS

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H&R Block Inc. (HRB, Financial), the U.S. tax preparation company with subsidiaries in North America, India and Australia headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, is going to release its financial results for the last quarter of fiscal 2017Ă‚ after market close June 12.

The company also offers consulting services for payrolls and businesses.

For the quarter in question the analysts forecast that H&R Block will report an EPS of $3.53, which represents a 11.7% increase from sales one year ago.

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Source: Yahoo Finance

The forecasted EPS is an average of 10 analysts’ estimates on H&R Block’s earnings for the last quarter of 2017. The average EPS of $3.53 ranges between a low of $3.4 and a high of $3.6 per share.

Concerning revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, analysts forecast that H&R Block will report revenue coming in at $2.32 billion on average. This is 0.80% upside from the same item of the comparable quarter of fiscal 2016 when the U.S. tax preparation company reported revenue coming in at $2.3 billion as you can see from the picture below.

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Source: Yahoo Finance

The average figure for the fourth quarter 2017 revenue of $2.32 billion – as forecasted by the average analyst – ranges between a low of $2.29 billion and a high of $2.35 billion.

Concerning its balance sheet, the company had approximately $221.17 million in cash on hand and securities or $1.07 per share as of the third quarter of fiscal 2017 while the total debt amounted to $2.59 billion.

The Current Ratio (mrq) is 2.1, which means that the company has enough financial resources to meet its short-term obligations versus an industry average of 2.64.

H&R Block has an interest coverage ratio (ttm) of 12.44 versus an industry average of 24.41, according to Reuters. Even though it is lower than that one of its peers, a value far above 1.5 indicates that H&R Block can easily pay interest expenses on the outstanding debt.

The company has 207.17 million shares outstanding, of which nearly 99.5% is the amount of shares that can be traded on the stock market. The percentage of H&R Block’s shares outstanding held by insiders is 0.37% while the percentage held by institutions is 88.4%.

H&R Block distributes an annual dividend of 88 cents to its shareholders through quarterly payments of 22 cents for a dividend yield of 3.36% according to the current market value of the stock.

H&R Block is trading at $26.19 per share with a price-earnings (P/E) ratio of 17.60 and a price-sales (P/S) ratio of 1.81.

The forward P/E ratio is 14.23; when multiplied for an average figure for EPS of $1.84, gives us a value of $26.18, which is in line with the current valuation that the stock market gives to this stock.

The analysts’ average target price is $24.71 per share with a recommendation rating of 2.9 out of 5.

Disclosure: I have no positions in H&R Block.