ConAgra sales rise on higher demand for food ingredients

ConAgra Foods (NYSE:CAG) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, September 22nd. After the session commenced at $43.28, the stock reached the higher end at $43.745 while it hit a low of $42.86. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Let’s take a closer look at the financial performance of these two companies and see whether hedge fund sentiment suggest that the market overreacted to a particular part of their results. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on shares of ConAgra Foods to $47.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 16th. However, the top line missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3,692 million. The company reported actual earnings of $0.59 which was $0 away from what analysts were projecting on a consensus basis.

The Consumer Foods segment posted sales of approximately $1.7 billion and operating profit of $242 million, as reported.

ConAgra generated net revenue of $2,793.8 million, up 1.1% year over year. In the year prior to that, the firm paid out $0.19 per share in distributions, or a difference of 44.7369%.

It also beat analysts’ estimates, which were set at 40 cents per share.

As a whole, Wall Street analysts tracked by Zacks have an average price target of $46 on shares of the equity.

Shares of ConAgra were inactive in premarket trading Tuesday, having closed at $42.40 on Monday, up 0.4% for the day in a 52-week range $32.41 to $45.49. The firm’s market cap is $18.11 billion. Equities research analysts forecast that ConAgra Foods will post $2.24 EPS for the current year.

While it looks for a buyer of that unit, ConAgra faces additional pressure from activist investor Jana Partners LLC, which as of early July owned a 2.7% stake in the company. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, July 28th.

ConAgra Foods, Inc.is a packaged food company. The Company’s brands include Egg Beaters, Chef Boyardee, Banquet, Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, Hunt’s, Marie Callender’s, Orville Redenbacher’s, PAM, Peter Pan, Reddi-wip, Slim Jim and Snack Pack, amongst others. The Company supplies commercial foods business serving foodservice operations and restaurants, as well as branded and private branded food in families. Furthermore, the Organization makes frozen potato and sweet potato items, along with other vegetable, spice, bakery goods, and grain products because of its commercial and foodservice customers.

As it divests itself of some of its non-core, private-label brands, the company can focus on not just on its commercial foods businesses, but also its consumer foods segment – its core revenue and profit generator.