I am saying that on thinking a bit further, compared to yesterday, I have come up with more comfort that the gut-feel $100m will transpire to be roughly right. The comfort stems from two things, facts and Management's discretion to time-shift. The facts as I see them support the $100m, and time-shifting tends to occasion the profit to be reported from being better, or worse, than what Management has in mind. I am assuming Management may well issue a guidance of about $100m, but I don't know.
Within reason, Management can estimate fairly well what NPAT is going to be. Remember, CCP has a superb numerics facility to do the required forecasting. If it figures out it can make $105m, it would set its mind on $100m. If it only makes $95K, it can, if it wants to, time-shift $5m from FY20 into FY21 to hit the $100m. If it can make $109m, it may change its target to $105m and time-shift $4m into FY22.
CCP has for over a decade issued guidances that 90% of the time are at the top-end of its range. This level of accuracy can only partly spring from good numeric analysis, it is, IMO, time-shifting that makes it unbelievably accurate. That is why, barring a Covid-19-style black-swan event, one can always take the top end of the guidances as being the most likely outcome.
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