DigitalBridge Group, Inc. (NYSE:DBRG) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's statutory forecasts. Consensus estimates suggest investors could expect greatly increased statutory revenues and earnings per share, with the analysts modelling a real improvement in business performance.

After the upgrade, the consensus from DigitalBridge Group's seven analysts is for revenues of US$646m in 2024, which would reflect a sizeable 39% decline in sales compared to the last year of performance. Statutory earnings per share are supposed to tumble 97% to US$0.089 in the same period. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of US$377m and US$0.21 per share in losses. It looks like there's been a definite improvement in business conditions, with a revenue upgrade supposed to lead to profitability sooner than previously forecast.

See our latest analysis for DigitalBridge Group

Despite these upgrades, the analysts have not made any major changes to their price target of US$19.42, suggesting that the higher estimates are not likely to have a long term impact on what the stock is worth.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the DigitalBridge Group's past performance and to peers in the same industry. One more thing stood out to us about these estimates, and it's the idea that DigitalBridge Group's decline is expected to accelerate, with revenues forecast to fall at an annualised rate of 63% to the end of 2024. This tops off a historical decline of 5.4% a year over the past five years. Compare this against analyst estimates for companies in the broader industry, which suggest that revenues (in aggregate) are expected to grow 11% annually. So it's pretty clear that, while it does have declining revenues, the analysts also expect DigitalBridge Group to suffer worse than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that there is now an expectation for DigitalBridge Group to become profitable this year, compared to previous expectations of a loss. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting revenues to grow slower than the wider market. Some investors might be disappointed to see that the price target is unchanged, but we feel that improving fundamentals are usually a positive - assuming these forecasts are met! So DigitalBridge Group could be a good candidate for more research.

These earnings upgrades look like a sterling endorsement, but before diving in - you should know that we've spotted 3 potential risks with DigitalBridge Group, including its declining profit margins. You can learn more, and discover the 2 other risks we've identified, for free on our platform here.

Another way to search for interesting companies that could be reaching an inflection point is to track whether management are buying or selling, with our free list of growing companies backed by insiders.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.