National Bank of Greece SA. (ATH:ETE): Is Breakeven Near?

National Bank of Greece SA.'s (ATSE:ETE): National Bank of Greece S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides financial services. With the latest financial year loss of -€142.00M and a trailing-twelve month of -€204.00M, the €2.64B market-cap amplifies its loss by moving further away from its breakeven target. As path to profitability is the topic on ETE’s investors mind, I’ve decided to gauge market sentiment. Below I will provide a high-level summary of the industry analysts’ expectations for ETE.

Expectation from analysts is ETE is on the verge of breakeven. They anticipate the company to incur a final loss in 2017, before generating positive profits of €250.76M in 2018. Therefore, ETE is expected to breakeven roughly a couple of months from now! What rate will ETE have to grow year-on-year in order to breakeven on this date? Using a line of best fit, I calculated an average annual growth rate of 80.14%, which is extremely buoyant. Should the business grow at a slower rate, it will become profitable at a later date than expected.

Given this is a high-level overview, I won’t go into detail the detail of ETE’s upcoming projects, but, keep in mind that by and large a high growth rate is not out of the ordinary, particularly when a company is in a period of investment.

One thing I would like to bring into light with ETE is its debt-to-equity ratio of 190.71%. Generally, the rule of thumb is debt shouldn’t exceed 40% of your equity, and ETE has considerably exceeded this. Note that a higher debt obligation increases the risk around investing in the loss-making company.

Next Steps:

There are key fundamentals of ETE which are not covered in this article, but I must stress again that this is merely a basic overview. For a more comprehensive look at ETE, take a look at ETE’s company page on Simply Wall St. I’ve also put together a list of pertinent aspects you should further examine:

1. Valuation: What is ETE worth today? Has the future growth potential already been factored into the price? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether ETE is currently mispriced by the market.
2. Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business – take a look at who sits on National Bank of Greece’s board and the CEO’s back ground.
3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

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Simply Wall St analyst Simply Wall St and Simply Wall St have no position in any of the companies mentioned. This article 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.