Virbac (EPA:VIRP) shareholders have earned a 16% CAGR over the last three years

By buying an index fund, you can roughly match the market return with ease. But if you buy good businesses at attractive prices, your portfolio returns could exceed the average market return. For example, the Virbac SA (EPA:VIRP) share price is up 53% in the last three years, clearly besting the market return of around 17% (not including dividends). On the other hand, the returns haven't been quite so good recently, with shareholders up just 11%, including dividends.

So let's investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

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In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

Virbac was able to grow its EPS at 4.2% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. In comparison, the 15% per year gain in the share price outpaces the EPS growth. This indicates that the market is feeling more optimistic on the stock, after the last few years of progress. It is quite common to see investors become enamoured with a business, after a few years of solid progress.

The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Virbac's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. We note that for Virbac the TSR over the last 3 years was 55%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

Virbac provided a TSR of 11% over the year (including dividends). That's fairly close to the broader market return. Most would be happy with a gain, and it helps that the year's return is actually better than the average return over five years, which was 8%. Even if the share price growth slows down from here, there's a good chance that this is business worth watching in the long term. Is Virbac cheap compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: many of them are unnoticed AND have attractive valuation).

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on French exchanges.

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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.