Envision Healthcare (EVHC) Receives $40.19 Consensus PT from Brokerages

Shares of Envision Healthcare (NYSE:EVHC) have been given an average recommendation of “Hold” by the nineteen brokerages that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, twelve have given a hold recommendation and five have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $40.19.

EVHC has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group set a $46.00 target price on shares of Envision Healthcare and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 15th. Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating and issued a $51.00 target price on shares of Envision Healthcare in a research note on Tuesday, June 12th. Robert W. Baird set a $45.00 target price on shares of Envision Healthcare and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, February 26th. William Blair cut shares of Envision Healthcare from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Monday, June 11th. Finally, ValuEngine cut shares of Envision Healthcare from a “sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 2nd.

Get Envision Healthcare alerts:

Envision Healthcare traded down $0.07, hitting $44.68, on Monday, according to MarketBeat Ratings. The stock had a trading volume of 8,161,292 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,490,349. Envision Healthcare has a 52-week low of $23.77 and a 52-week high of $64.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 2.27 and a quick ratio of 2.25. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.42 billion, a PE ratio of 18.02, a P/E/G ratio of 1.10 and a beta of 0.46.

Envision Healthcare (NYSE:EVHC) last posted its earnings results on Monday, May 7th. The company reported $0.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $0.64 by $0.07. Envision Healthcare had a net margin of 1.41% and a return on equity of 4.59%. The business had revenue of $2.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.02 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.77 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.6% compared to the same quarter last year. research analysts anticipate that Envision Healthcare will post 3.41 EPS for the current year.

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Federated Investors Inc. PA raised its position in Envision Healthcare by 194.8% in the 1st quarter. Federated Investors Inc. PA now owns 2,753 shares of the company’s stock worth $106,000 after purchasing an additional 1,819 shares during the period. Rampart Investment Management Company LLC raised its position in Envision Healthcare by 124.4% in the 1st quarter. Rampart Investment Management Company LLC now owns 3,362 shares of the company’s stock worth $129,000 after purchasing an additional 1,864 shares during the period. OLD Mutual Customised Solutions Proprietary Ltd. raised its position in Envision Healthcare by 88.2% in the 4th quarter. OLD Mutual Customised Solutions Proprietary Ltd. now owns 6,401 shares of the company’s stock worth $221,000 after purchasing an additional 3,000 shares during the period. Verition Fund Management LLC purchased a new position in Envision Healthcare in the 1st quarter worth $221,000. Finally, Element Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Envision Healthcare in the 1st quarter worth $227,000.

Envision Healthcare Company Profile

Envision Healthcare Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides various healthcare services in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Physician Services and Ambulatory Services. As of December 31, 2017, its physician-led services encompassed providers at approximately 1,800 clinical departments at healthcare facilities in 45 states and the District of Columbia that include emergency department and hospitalist, anesthesiology, radiology/tele-radiology, and children's services.

Why GE's Dow Delisting Is Not The Ultimate Sell Signal

&l;p&g;&l;img class=&q;dam-image getty size-large wp-image-849890504&q; src=&q;https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/dam/imageserve/849890504/960x0.jpg?fit=scale&q; data-height=&q;664&q; data-width=&q;960&q;&g; NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 19: Jack Welch is joined onstage by 24 other philanthropist and influential business people featured on the Forbes list of 100 Greatest Business Minds during the Forbes Media Centennial Celebration at Pier 60 on September 19, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage)

GE stock -- in which I am an investor -- will be removed from the Dow Jones Industrials Index next week -- a position it has occupied since 1907.

Is this the ultimate sell signal? In retrospect, that sell signal was the day Jack Welch&a;nbsp;announced that Jeff Immelt had won the competition to replace Welch&a;nbsp;as GE&s;s CEO.

But that is no help now.&a;nbsp; The delisting from the Dow&a;nbsp;is a powerful symbol of GE&s;s decline. However, it is not the end of its world -- after all, AT&a;amp;T was also removed from the Dow and seems to be&a;nbsp;surviving -- having just completed its acquisition of Time Warner.

But I plan to hold onto my GE shares.

Before getting into why, let&s;s take a look at Boston-based GE&s;s business and its financial performance. GE&a;nbsp; is a&a;nbsp;&q;diversified manufacturer&q; that operates&a;nbsp;eight separate businesses: power, oil and gas, renewable energy, lighting, aviation, healthcare, transportation, and specialty industrial financing (GE Capital).

In 2017 GE generated $120.5 billion in revenue, posted a net loss of $8.2 billion -- yet generated free cash flow of $2.5 billion (a figure which has been shrinking at a five year average rate of 31.1%, according to &l;a href=&q;https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xnys/ge/quote.html&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;&l;em&g;Morningstar)&l;/em&g;&l;/a&g;.

In the first quarter, GE&s;s revenues rose 3,6% to $28.7 billion, its net income from continuing operations fell 46% to $440 million, and its EBITDA of $3.6 billion was up 14.1% from the year before, according to &l;a href=&q;https://financials.morningstar.com/income-statement/is.html?t=0P000002DO&a;amp;culture=en-US&a;amp;platform=sal&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;&l;em&g;Morningstar&l;/em&g;&l;/a&g;.

In the last year, its shares have lost 53% of their value.

&l;!--nextpage--&g;

GE&s;s problems started when Jack Welch handed the reins to the wrong person. Jeff Immelt was&a;nbsp;not effective as CEO&a;nbsp;and is responsible for leaving GE in such a weakened condition that his departure was announced in &l;a href=&q;https://financials.morningstar.com/income-statement/is.html?t=0P000002DO&a;amp;culture=en-US&a;amp;platform=sal&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;June 2017&l;/a&g; --&a;nbsp;four years before his 20 years were up.

Back in 2007, I argued that Immelt was the wrong choice after GE&s;s stock price fell. What&s;s more it was clear that the better performing rival for the GE CEO, James McNerney, about whom I wrote, &l;a href=&q;https://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Order-Change-Turnaround/dp/B0028N72CQ&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;&l;em&g;You Can&s;t Order Change&l;/em&g;&l;/a&g;, would have been a better pick.

In July 2007, I was summoned by GE&s;s then CFO, &l;a href=&q;https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160830005764/en/Keith-S.-Sherin-Retire-GE-35-Years&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;Keith Sherin&l;/a&g;,&a;nbsp;to Rockefeller Center and asked what I thought GE ought to do to get its stock price up. I gave GE its money&s;s worth -- I was not paid -- which was to tell Sherin that GE should exit businesses in which it was not a leader -- such as Media, Financial Services, Appliances, and Lighting.

That is still a work in process. And in February 2018, The &l;a href=&q;https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jeffrey-immelts-success-theater-masked-the-rot-at-ge-1519231067/&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;&l;em&g;Wall Street Journal&l;/em&g;&l;/a&g; offered a look inside Immelt&s;s GE -- which it dubbed a &q;success theater&q; -- in which bad news was not discussed. As the Journal wrote In May 2017, Immelt

&l;/p&g;&l;blockquote&g;Defended his long-held 2018 profit goal, an optimistic benchmark Wall Street had long abandoned. &a;ldquo;&a;nbsp;not crap. It&a;rsquo;s pretty good really. Today, when I think about where the stock is compared to what the company is, it&a;rsquo;s a mismatch.&a;rdquo; It was a mismatch. On that day, GE shares were trading near $28. They would go on to collapse over the next six months while the stock market set fresh records.&l;/blockquote&g;

&l;div&g;

In June 20 pre-market,&a;nbsp;they traded&a;nbsp;at a special low price of just&a;nbsp;$12.95!

GE will be replaced in the Dow by Walgreen&s;s. &l;a href=&q;https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/19/walgreens-replacing-ge-on-the-dow.html&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;David Blitzer&l;/a&g;, chairman of the index committee at S&a;amp;P Dow Jones Indices, the company behind the Dow said, this move would make &a;ldquo;The DJIA more representative of the consumer and health care sectors of the U.S. economy. Today&a;rsquo;s change to the DJIA will make the index a better measure of the economy and the stock market.&a;rdquo;

GE does not strike me as overly upset with this. The company said in a &l;a href=&q;https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/19/walgreens-replacing-ge-on-the-dow.html&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;statement&l;/a&g;: &q;We are focused on executing against the plan we&s;ve laid out to improve GE&s;s performance. Today&s;s announcement does nothing to change those commitments or our focus in creating a stronger, simpler GE.&q;

And the delisting should not affect investor behavior since a relatively small $29.5 billion of mutual and exchange-traded funds track the Dow Industrials -- 0.3% of the $9.9 trillion in assets linked to the S&a;amp;P 500 index through the end of 2017, according to data provided by &l;a href=&q;https://www.wsj.com/articles/walgreens-to-replace-ge-in-dow-industrials-1529443336?mod=hp_lead_pos5&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;S&a;amp;P Dow Jones Indices&l;/a&g;.

What&s;s more, delisting is not a death knell. In March 2015, Apple&a;nbsp;replaced AT&a;amp;T&a;nbsp; in the Dow but that did not stop Ma Bell from devouring Time Warner.

Since John Flannery &l;a href=&q;https://www.ge.com/reports/john-flannery-named-chairman-ceo-ge/&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;took over last August&l;/a&g; his demeanor suggests that GE is in an existential struggle to restructure its business lines and balance sheet in order to remain solvent.

Under Jack Welch, GE managed to grow its earnings at double digit rates and beat quarterly expectations by a penny -- which turned out to be &l;a href=&q;https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/10/10/jack-welch-pot-calling-kettle-black/#33a041e921e7&q;&g;done through some shady means&l;/a&g; -- yet it caused its stock price to soar to a record high in 2000 which valued the company at $594 billion.

I think investors would like to see GE return to that kind of consistent growth. And it is a long way from doing that.

So why not sell GE? Unless it comes to light that GE has major accounting problems or it can&s;t repay its debts, I think Flannery will find a way to follow the other advice I gave to Sherin in 2007 -- invest in businesses with the most profit potential in which GE is and will be a leader.

If that happens, GE will grow faster and its stock price will rise.

&l;/div&g;