TreeHouse Foods Earnings Preview

TreeHouse Foods (NYSE: THS  ) met its estimates last quarter, but investors hope it will beat them this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Friday. TreeHouse Foods is a food manufacturer servicing mainly the retail grocery and food service distribution channels.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back TreeHouse Foods, with seven of 13 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like TreeHouse Foods better than competitor Lancaster Colony 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 $525.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 13.2% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.83 per share. Estimates range from $0.80 to $0.88.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 90.2% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 90.7% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about TreeHouse Foods, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 46 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, TreeHouse Foods' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:

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	Q2	Q1	Q4	Q3
Gross Margin	22.2%	24.5%	24.8%	23.7%
Operating Margin	6.8%	9.1%	11.1%	10.3%
Net Margin	2.9%	4.0%	5.5%	5.4%

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