CapIQ

Source: S&P Capital IQ consensus via Xpressfeed · Generated 2026-08-03.

Consensus Tape

Charter's consensus tape carries no growth. Revenue is a flat line through FY2029 and EBITDA drifts lower to FY2028. What improves is cash: free cash flow rises 29.4% in FY2027 and 23.1% in FY2028 as the capex line steps down, and net debt falls to $81,310M. The street cut FY2027 normalized EPS -8.3% over six months while leaving revenue nearly alone, and its 17 price targets span $101 to $380.

Source: derived from vendor data.

Six months of cuts landed on EPS, not on revenue

Source: derived from vendor data.

The two lines have not moved together, and the gap is the point. FY2027 normalized EPS stood at $48.11 six months ago and is $44.11 today, a move of -8.3%; FY2028 went from $53.52 to $48.47, -9.4%. Revenue over the identical window moved a fraction of that: FY2027 -1.9%, FY2028 -3.1%. A downgrade that lands almost entirely below the top line is a margin, capital-structure or below-the-line story, not a demand story — the feed does not identify which, and this tab does not guess.

The timing matters as much as the size. Nearly all of the cutting happened between six and three months ago. Since then FY2027 has gone sideways at best: -0.2% over 90 days and -1.2% over 30. FY2028 has gone the other way, +4.0% over 90 days and +2.8% over 30, recovering part of what it lost. On EPS, the near year is still leaking and the far year has stopped.

Revenue offers no such divergence. Every window on both years is negative — FY2027 at -0.3% over 90 days and -0.3% over 30, FY2028 at -0.6% on each — a slow, uniform trim rather than an inflection.

Revenue lands within a point of consensus every quarter; EPS does not

Source: derived from vendor data. Consensus is the figure standing immediately before each print, not today's restated estimate for that quarter.

The revenue line is close to pre-announced. Across eight quarters the largest beat is +0.98% and the largest miss -0.96%; the median-sized quarter is a rounding error. The last two prints were both beats, +0.41% and +0.14%, a streak of 2.

Normalized EPS behaves nothing like that. The same eight quarters split evenly, four beats and four misses, but the misses are the bigger ones: -10.5%, -8.98% and -6.06% against beats of +10.2%, +5.22% and +3.91%. The most recent quarter was a beat, +2.43%, and it follows a -8.98% miss — a streak of 1. There is no sandbagging pattern here to lean on: this is guidance the street misprices in both directions, in a business whose revenue it forecasts to within a point.

Source: derived from vendor data. Consensus is the figure standing immediately before each print.

Sorted on either surprise column the asymmetry is plain, and it lines up with the revision pattern above: the street models this top line tightly and the earnings line loosely, so an -8.3% cut to forward EPS beside a -1.9% trim to forward revenue is the same phenomenon seen from the other end.

Flat revenue and a falling EBITDA line, with free cash flow up two years running

Source: derived from vendor data.

The forward shape is unusually easy to read because nothing happens on the top line. Against FY2025 revenue of $54,774M, consensus has -0.9% in FY2026, -1.0% in FY2027, +0.1% in FY2028 and +0.5% in FY2029. EBITDA does slightly worse for three years and then turns: -2.0%, -1.6%, -0.5%, then +2.0%. Four years of consensus, and the operating base ends roughly where it started.

Free cash flow is the exception, and it is not an operating exception. Cash from operations is $16,238M in FY2026 and $16,343M in FY2029 — unchanged for practical purposes. Free cash flow, meanwhile, rises +29.4% in FY2027 and +23.1% in FY2028 to $7,485M, then eases -5.1% in FY2029. The difference sits in the capex line, which the street has stepping down through FY2028 and holding there. Whether that step-down is a spending-cycle assumption or a modelling convenience is a driver-level question; the Visible Alpha tab carries the broker build-ups.

Net debt follows the cash: $92,397M in FY2026 down to $81,310M in FY2029 on consensus means. And earnings rise while EBITDA falls — normalized EPS goes $41.74, $44.11, $48.47 across FY2026 to FY2028, +15.3%, +5.7% and +9.9% year over year. Growth in the earnings line is not coming from the operating line. The feed does not say what supplies it, and this tab will not invent a bridge.

The street agrees on revenue and splits on EPS

Source: derived from vendor data.

On revenue the street is close to unanimous. 18 analysts put FY2026 between $53,913M and $54,442M; 17 put FY2027 between $52,951M and $54,381M. Even FY2028, on 13 analysts, holds a band of $52,202M to $55,535M. EBITDA is looser but still orderly: $20,437M to $22,912M in FY2027 on the same 17.

Normalized EPS is a different picture entirely. FY2027 runs $36.25 to $49.60 across 13 analysts; FY2028 runs $34.21 to $59.33 across 9. The high FY2028 estimate is not a variant view of the top line — revenue and EBITDA barely move across the same forecasts — so the disagreement sits below EBITDA. That is consistent with everything above: the tightly forecast revenue line, the loosely forecast earnings line, and a six-month revision cycle that hit EPS several times harder than revenue.

17 price targets span $101 to $380, and the book is hold-heavy

Source: derived from vendor data.

Source: derived from vendor data.

The target range is the widest thing on this page: the high is nearly four times the low. The mean of $184.41 sits well above the median of $150, so the upper end is a thin tail rather than the centre of opinion — reading the mean as the street's view would misstate it. The recommendation book says the same thing in a duller way: 11 holds against 5 buys and no outperforms, with 3 sells and 2 underperforms behind them, and a consensus recommendation score of 2.90.

This tab carries no share price, so none of the above is an upside calculation. What it does show is that a business the street can forecast to within a point on revenue produces a near-fourfold spread in what analysts think the equity is worth — and the EPS dispersion two sections up is the most likely place that spread lives.