Little Excitement Around Manolete Partners Plc's (LON:MANO) Revenues As Shares Take 27% Pounding

Manolete Partners Plc (LON:MANO) shareholders that were waiting for something to happen have been dealt a blow with a 27% share price drop in the last month. Instead of being rewarded, shareholders who have already held through the last twelve months are now sitting on a 39% share price drop.

Even after such a large drop in price, Manolete Partners may still be sending buy signals at present with its price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 1.8x, considering almost half of all companies in the Capital Markets industry in the United Kingdom have P/S ratios greater than 3.3x and even P/S higher than 9x aren't out of the ordinary. However, the P/S might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

Check out our latest analysis for Manolete Partners

How Manolete Partners Has Been Performing

The revenue growth achieved at Manolete Partners over the last year would be more than acceptable for most companies. It might be that many expect the respectable revenue performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the P/S. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

Although there are no analyst estimates available for Manolete Partners, take a look at this free data-rich visualisation to see how the company stacks up on earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What Are Revenue Growth Metrics Telling Us About The Low P/S?

The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/S as low as Manolete Partners' is when the company's growth is on track to lag the industry.

If we review the last year of revenue growth, the company posted a terrific increase of 27%. Despite this strong recent growth, it's still struggling to catch up as its three-year revenue frustratingly shrank by 5.5% overall. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of revenue growth.

Comparing that to the industry, which is predicted to deliver 18% growth in the next 12 months, the company's downward momentum based on recent medium-term revenue results is a sobering picture.

With this in mind, we understand why Manolete Partners' P/S is lower than most of its industry peers. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/S has reached a floor yet with revenue going in reverse. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as recent revenue trends are already weighing down the shares.

What We Can Learn From Manolete Partners' P/S?

The southerly movements of Manolete Partners' shares means its P/S is now sitting at a pretty low level. Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-sales ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

It's no surprise that Manolete Partners maintains its low P/S off the back of its sliding revenue over the medium-term. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in revenue isn't great enough to justify a higher P/S ratio. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.

We don't want to rain on the parade too much, but we did also find 2 warning signs for Manolete Partners (1 is potentially serious!) that you need to be mindful of.

If you're unsure about the strength of Manolete Partners' business, why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals for some other companies you may have missed.

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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.