Delayed prelims from Royal Mail owner International Distributions Services PLC (LSE:IDS) met with a collective 'meh' from City analysts digging deeper into the release.
Auditors were cited for the hold-up, which saw the Thursday morning announcement pushed back to after-hours on Friday ahead of the long bank holiday weekend.
In the end, the numbers were underwhelming, the Square Mile's number crunchers said, as the headline financials missed consensus.
Revenues for the 12 months ended March 31 were £12.7 billion, up around 5% on the same period last year, while IDS made a reported operating profit of just £26 million.
With the business subject to bid interest from Daniel Kretinsky, IDS management, which said it is minded to back the Czech's £5 billion deal, opted not to provide forward guidance.
"We saw little to be encouraged about. We remain sceptical about the government clearing the potential offer, especially given the decision probably falls to a future Labour government and considering the trade union concerns," said investment bank Liberum in a note to clients.
Repeating its 'sell' recommendation, Liberum increased its share price target to 200p from 180p previously.
Broker Peel Hunt, a 'holder' with a 260p target, told investors: "No outlook was given, although Royal Mail has shown a material improvement in performance during the second half, where the operating loss was only £29m compared to £319m in the strike-affected first half.
"Following the publication of results, Ofcom announced an investigation into Royal Mail’s continued failure to meet its delivery targets, and we believe this is likely to result in another small fine of less than £10 million."
Only two of the seven banks and brokerages following IDS are positive on the stock. Four say 'hold', with the other a 'seller'. The consensus price target is 280p a discount to the bid-inflated current price of 325.26p, up 1.7%.