PulteGroup Sinks on Missed Earnings

When PulteGroup Inc. (NYSE: PHM) reported its third-quarter financial results before the markets opened on Thursday, the company said it had $0.43 in earnings per share (EPS) and $1.94 billion in revenue. Thomson Reuters consensus estimates were EPS $0.44 and $1.95 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $0.30 in EPS and revenue of $1.51 billion.

During the quarter, revenues increased about 29% year over year. The higher revenues for the period benefited from a 16% increase in deliveries to 5,037 homes and an 11%, or $37,000, increase in average selling price to $374,000.

Net new orders for the third quarter increased 17% to 4,775 homes.  The value of orders increased 25% over the prior year to $1.8 billion. The company operated out of 709 communities in the third quarter, which is an increase of 16% over the third quarter of 2015.

Backlog value increased 20% over the prior year to $3.7 billion, as the number of homes in backlog increased 8% to 9,417 homes.

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Ryan Marshall, president and CEO of PulteGroup, commented:

I am extremely pleased with PulteGroup’s third quarter results which show a continuation of the strong demand and operating trends we experienced in the first half of 2016. Of particular note, the 25% increase in the value of our Q3 orders, one of the largest gains we have realized in years, benefited from the increased land investments we made in recent years and strong sales activity across all buyer groups, as first time, move up and active adult all gained over last year.

He added:

Along with delivering strong operating and financial results, the Company also completed its announced leadership transition during the quarter as Richard Dugas retired as CEO following a successful 22-year career.  As an organization, we will continue to advance the Company’s Value Creation strategy which has been instrumental in elevating our financial results over the past five years to be among the industry leaders.

On the books, PulteGroup cash and cash equivalents totaled $434.21 million at the end of the quarter, down from $754.16 million at the end of 2015.

Shares of PulteGroup were trading down about 3.4% at $19.20 on Thursday, with a consensus analyst price target of $23.58 and a 52-week trading range of $14.61 to $22.40.

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