KC Cottrell Co., Ltd. (KRX:119650) Looks Inexpensive After Falling 26% But Perhaps Not Attractive Enough

KC Cottrell Co., Ltd. (KRX:119650) shareholders won't be pleased to see that the share price has had a very rough month, dropping 26% and undoing the prior period's positive performance. For any long-term shareholders, the last month ends a year to forget by locking in a 62% share price decline.

Following the heavy fall in price, considering around half the companies operating in Korea's Machinery industry have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") above 0.9x, you may consider KC Cottrell as an solid investment opportunity with its 0.1x P/S ratio. However, the P/S might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

View our latest analysis for KC Cottrell

How Has KC Cottrell Performed Recently?

As an illustration, revenue has deteriorated at KC Cottrell over the last year, which is not ideal at all. It might be that many expect the disappointing revenue performance to continue or accelerate, 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 KC Cottrell, 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 KC Cottrell's is when the company's growth is on track to lag the industry.

In reviewing the last year of financials, we were disheartened to see the company's revenues fell to the tune of 1.1%. However, a few very strong years before that means that it was still able to grow revenue by an impressive 41% in total over the last three years. Accordingly, while they would have preferred to keep the run going, shareholders would definitely welcome the medium-term rates of revenue growth.

This is in contrast to the rest of the industry, which is expected to grow by 31% over the next year, materially higher than the company's recent medium-term annualised growth rates.

With this information, we can see why KC Cottrell is trading at a P/S lower than the industry. It seems most investors are expecting to see the recent limited growth rates continue into the future and are only willing to pay a reduced amount for the stock.

The Key Takeaway

KC Cottrell's recently weak share price has pulled its P/S back below other Machinery companies. Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-sales ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

Our examination of KC Cottrell confirms that the company's revenue trends over the past three-year years are a key factor in its low price-to-sales ratio, as we suspected, given they fall short of current industry expectations. 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.

Having said that, be aware KC Cottrell is showing 5 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 4 of those shouldn't be ignored.

If you're unsure about the strength of KC Cottrell's 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.