There Is A Reason VERBUND AG's (VIE:VER) Price Is Undemanding

When close to half the companies in Austria have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 16x, you may consider VERBUND AG (VIE:VER) as an attractive investment with its 12.8x P/E ratio. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/E at face value as there may be an explanation why it's limited.

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VERBUND has been struggling lately as its earnings have declined faster than most other companies. It seems that many are expecting the dismal earnings performance to persist, which has repressed the P/E. You'd much rather the company wasn't bleeding earnings if you still believe in the business. Or at the very least, you'd be hoping the earnings slide doesn't get any worse if your plan is to pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

View our latest analysis for VERBUND

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Does Growth Match The Low P/E?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should underperform the market for P/E ratios like VERBUND's to be considered reasonable.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 6.4% decrease to the company's bottom line. Regardless, EPS has managed to lift by a handy 29% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the earlier period of growth. So we can start by confirming that the company has generally done a good job of growing earnings over that time, even though it had some hiccups along the way.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should bring diminished returns, with earnings decreasing 14% per annum as estimated by the nine analysts watching the company. With the market predicted to deliver 9.2% growth per year, that's a disappointing outcome.

With this information, we are not surprised that VERBUND is trading at a P/E lower than the market. However, shrinking earnings are unlikely to lead to a stable P/E over the longer term. There's potential for the P/E to fall to even lower levels if the company doesn't improve its profitability.

The Final Word

Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-earnings ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

We've established that VERBUND maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its forecast for sliding earnings, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. It's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

It is also worth noting that we have found 2 warning signs for VERBUND (1 is significant!) that you need to take into consideration.

You might be able to find a better investment than VERBUND. If you want a selection of possible candidates, check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a low P/E (but have proven they can grow earnings).

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.