It's sobering to think that a year ago CSL Ltd (ASX: CSL) shares were changing hands for $235 and were on an upwards trajectory.
The stock chart since August last year highlights the story of a series of downgrades and earnings disappointments, culminating in this week's downgrade which pushed the shares past the psychologically important $100 barrier.
The question now is, will the stock recover any time soon, or is there more pain to come?
The analyst team at Macquarie has run the ruler over the company's latest announcementys and come up with an answer, which we'll get to shortly.
Image source: Getty Images
Plenty of bad news
Firstly, let's have a look at the bad news CSL dumped on its shareholders this week.
Flagged as a 90 day review from the interim Chief Executive Officer Gordon Naylor, CSL announced that its FY26 revenue was now expected to come in at about US$15.2 billion, lower than the US$15.6 billion posted last year.
Profit is also expected to fall from US$3.3 billion to US$3.1 billion.
The company is also expecting to make write-downs worth about US$5 billion across FY26 and FY27 in addition to write-downs already announced at the half year results.
On the upside, the company's Behring division expects to grow revenue in the second half, "supported by underlying demand, ongoing commercial execution and benefits from operational and transformation initiatives''.
Mr Naylor said the company has turnaround plans in place, they just haven't borne fruit as yet.
As he said:
Our growth initiatives are working, but the financial benefits will take longer than previously anticipated to materialise. As a result, we have now revised down our 2026 financial year guidance. CSL's culture and people continue to be first class, the industry is stable and growing and the company has evident strengths in plasma collections and influenza vaccines. I am confident that the company can be returned to profitable growth and my work is to position the business and the next CEO for success.
The company's global search for a permanent Chief Executive is ongoing.
Analysts unimpressed
Macquarie's research note on CSL, issued this week, was titled "A bloody mess".
The analyst team went on to say:
We have applied a 20% discount to our target price to reflect earnings uncertainty. This incorporates risks around the scale/duration of immunoglobulin inventory issues, greater volume decline in the China albumin market, and ongoing management uncertainty. We would expect to partially or fully unwind this discount as these risks diminish, either through improved operational delivery or as further analysis provides us with a higher level of comfort that these risks have subsided.
Macquarie has a price target of $111 on CSL shares.
CSL is valued at $46.58 billion.
