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We're definitely into long term investing, but some companies are simply bad investments over any time frame. We really hate to see fellow investors lose their hard-earned money. For example, we sympathize with anyone who was caught holding Seatrium Limited (SGX:5E2) during the five years that saw its share price drop a whopping 91%. We really feel for shareholders in this scenario. It's a good reminder of the importance of diversification, and it's worth keeping in mind there's more to life than money, anyway.
It's worthwhile assessing if the company's economics have been moving in lockstep with these underwhelming shareholder returns, or if there is some disparity between the two. So let's do just that.
View our latest analysis for Seatrium
Seatrium isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually desire strong revenue growth. That's because it's hard to be confident a company will be sustainable if revenue growth is negligible, and it never makes a profit.
In the last half decade, Seatrium saw its revenue increase by 27% per year. That's well above most other pre-profit companies. So on the face of it we're really surprised to see the share price has averaged a fall of 14% each year, in the same time period. You'd have to assume the market is worried that profits won't come soon enough. We'd recommend carefully checking for indications of future growth - and balance sheet threats - before considering a purchase.
The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).
We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. But while CEO remuneration is always worth checking, the really important question is whether the company can grow earnings going forward. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Seatrium will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).
A Different Perspective
While the broader market gained around 20% in the last year, Seatrium shareholders lost 0.9%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Unfortunately, longer term shareholders are suffering worse, given the loss of 14% doled out over the last five years. We'd need to see some sustained improvements in the key metrics before we could muster much enthusiasm. You could get a better understanding of Seatrium's growth by checking out this more detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow.