Robbins & Myers Earnings Preview

After beating estimates last quarter by $0.04, Robbins & Myers (NYSE: RBN  ) has set the standard for itself. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Friday. Robbins & Myers is a supplier of engineered equipment and systems for critical applications in global energy, industrial, chemical, and pharmaceutical markets.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Robbins & Myers, with seven of nine rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Robbins & Myers better than competitor Graco overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $242.2 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 47.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.68 per share. Estimates range from $0.64 to $0.76.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 95% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 96% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced Robbins & Myers, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 66 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Robbins & Myers, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Robbins & Myers' profit has risen year over year by an average of more than fourfold over the past five quarters. The company boosted its gross margin by 4.8 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 45.2% while cost of sales rose 34.7% to $158.7 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q4	Q3	Q2	Q1
Gross Margin	38.7%	36.3%	35.5%	37.9%
Operating Margin	20.2%	16.3%	8.5%	14.8%
Net Margin	13.7%	29.9%	6.0%	9.0%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks