Slightly fewer than half of the analysts who track Starbucks rate it at Buy.
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Starbucks is set to disclose its first-quarter earnings Tuesday after the closing bell. Investors will be watching to see how the company has navigated the Omicron variant and a push for unionization that has taken hold since the start of the pandemic.
The coffee roaster and retail giant, whose shares closed up 1.1% to $98.32 on Monday, reported mixed results in the fourth quarter. The company turned in adjusted earnings of $1 a share, while the consensus expectation among analysts tracked by FactSet was for 99 cents. Revenue was $8.15 billion, falling short of the consensus call of $8.21 billion.
This time, analysts expect EPS of 80 cents and $7.9 billion in revenue, according to FactSet. Thirteen of the 28 analysts that cover the stock rate it as Buy or Overweight, while the remaining 15 have it at Hold.
“We do not currently anticipate that first quarter results will provide a strong catalyst for SBUX shares,” Quovadis Capital analyst John Zolidis wrote in a research note Monday morning. “We believe investors would like to see the company hold its recent guidance, and expect some disruption related to Omicron.”
He remains bullish on Starbucks , citing the company’s loyalty program, pricing power, solid cost structure, and room to grow in key global markets including China. Same-store sales in the China market fell 7% in the fourth quarter compared with the year-earlier period.
The company has also seen an increase in unionizations. In December, workers at a store in Buffalo, N.Y., voted to form the first U.S. union in the company’s history. The stock fell more or less in line with the S&P 500 index the day of the announcement. Since then, about 24 of Starbucks‘ nearly 9,000 U.S. corporate stores have filed for individual union elections.
Starbucks disclosed that CEO Kevin Johnson’s total compensation for 2021 totaled $20.43 million, up 39% from $14.67 million in 2020, which was down from $19.24 million in 2019, according to a 2021 proxy statement released late Friday.
Shares of Starbucks have dipped 7.3% over the past three months while the S&P 500 has fallen 1.95%.
Write to Logan Moore at [email protected]
