Equity Residential Earnings: Keeping the Profitability Streak Alive

Falling revenue did not prevent S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) component Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR) from reporting a profit boost in the third quarter. Equity Residential is a real estate investment trust company that acquires and manages apartment properties in top growth markets in the United States.

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Equity Residential Earnings Cheat Sheet

Results: Net income for Equity Residential rose to $226.1 million (72 cents per share) vs. $107.8 million (35 cents per share) in the same quarter a year earlier. This is a more than twofold rise from the year-earlier quarter.

Revenue: Fell 11.2% to $493.9 million from the year-earlier quarter.

Actual vs. Wall St. Expectations: Equity Residential fell short of the mean analyst estimate of 76 cents per share. It fell short of the average revenue estimate of $537.9 million.

Quoting Management: “We continue to experience strong fundamentals across our markets and turned consistent demand into terrific same store revenue growth of 5.8% in the third quarter,” said David J. Neithercut, Equity Residential’s President and CEO. “For the full year, we expect to deliver 5.6% same store revenue growth, slightly ahead of our original plan and a very good result following growth of 5.0% in 2011. Fundamentals should remain favorable in 2013 which should produce same store revenue growth of 4.0% to 5.0%.”

Key Stats:

The company fell short of estimates last quarter after being in line with expectations the quarter before with net income of 68 cents.

Net income has increased 54.2% year-over-year on average across the last five quarters. The biggest gain came in the third quarter of the last fiscal year, when income climbed more than threefold from the year-earlier quarter.

Looking Forward: Expectations for the company’s next-quarter performance are higher than they were ninety days ago. Over the past three months, the average estimate for the fourth quarter has risen to 77 cents per share from 73 cents. The average estimate for the fiscal year has seen a bump from $2.74 per share sixty days ago to $2.77.

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(Company fundamentals provided by Xignite Financials. Earnings estimates provided by Zacks)

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