Implenia AG's (VTX:IMPN) Earnings Are Not Doing Enough For Some Investors

With a price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 9.9x Implenia AG (VTX:IMPN) may be sending very bullish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all companies in Switzerland have P/E ratios greater than 21x and even P/E's higher than 33x are not unusual. However, the P/E might be quite low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

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While the market has experienced earnings growth lately, Implenia's earnings have gone into reverse gear, which is not great. It seems that many are expecting the dour earnings performance to persist, which has repressed the P/E. If this is the case, then existing shareholders will probably struggle to get excited about the future direction of the share price.

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How Is Implenia's Growth Trending?

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

If we review the last year of earnings, dishearteningly the company's profits fell to the tune of 34%. However, a few very strong years before that means that it was still able to grow EPS by an impressive 52% in total over the last three years. Although it's been a bumpy ride, it's still fair to say the earnings growth recently has been more than adequate for the company.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the four analysts covering the company suggest earnings should grow by 5.5% each year over the next three years. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is forecast to expand by 10% per annum, which is noticeably more attractive.

With this information, we can see why Implenia is trading at a P/E lower than the market. It seems most investors are expecting to see limited future growth and are only willing to pay a reduced amount for the stock.

The Key Takeaway

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 Implenia maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its forecast growth being lower than the wider market, 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.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 1 warning sign for Implenia that we have uncovered.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a few good candidates. So take a peek at this free list of companies with a strong growth track record, trading on a low P/E.

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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.