Are Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad's (KLSE:CHOOBEE) Statutory Earnings A Good Guide To Its Underlying Profitability?

Broadly speaking, profitable businesses are less risky than unprofitable ones. Having said that, sometimes statutory profit levels are not a good guide to ongoing profitability, because some short term one-off factor has impacted profit levels. Today we'll focus on whether this year's statutory profits are a good guide to understanding Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad (KLSE:CHOOBEE).

We like the fact that Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad made a profit of RM6.82m on its revenue of RM334.2m, in the last year. In the last few years both its revenue and its profit have fallen, as you can see in the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad

Importantly, statutory profits are not always the best tool for understanding a company's true earnings power, so it's well worth examining profits in a little more detail. As a result, today we're going to take a closer look at Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad's cashflow, and unusual items, with a view to understanding what these might tell us about its statutory profit. Note: we always recommend investors check balance sheet strength. Click here to be taken to our balance sheet analysis of Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad.

A Closer Look At Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad's Earnings

As finance nerds would already know, the accrual ratio from cashflow is a key measure for assessing how well a company's free cash flow (FCF) matches its profit. The accrual ratio subtracts the FCF from the profit for a given period, and divides the result by the average operating assets of the company over that time. The ratio shows us how much a company's profit exceeds its FCF.

That means a negative accrual ratio is a good thing, because it shows that the company is bringing in more free cash flow than its profit would suggest. While having an accrual ratio above zero is of little concern, we do think it's worth noting when a company has a relatively high accrual ratio. Notably, there is some academic evidence that suggests that a high accrual ratio is a bad sign for near-term profits, generally speaking.

Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad has an accrual ratio of -0.12 for the year to September 2020. That implies it has good cash conversion, and implies that its free cash flow solidly exceeded its profit last year. In fact, it had free cash flow of RM61m in the last year, which was a lot more than its statutory profit of RM6.82m. Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad shareholders are no doubt pleased that free cash flow improved over the last twelve months. However, that's not all there is to consider. The accrual ratio is reflecting the impact of unusual items on statutory profit, at least in part.

How Do Unusual Items Influence Profit?

Surprisingly, given Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad's accrual ratio implied strong cash conversion, its paper profit was actually boosted by RM4.9m in unusual items. While it's always nice to have higher profit, a large contribution from unusual items sometimes dampens our enthusiasm. When we crunched the numbers on thousands of publicly listed companies, we found that a boost from unusual items in a given year is often not repeated the next year. And, after all, that's exactly what the accounting terminology implies. We can see that Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad's positive unusual items were quite significant relative to its profit in the year to September 2020. All else being equal, this would likely have the effect of making the statutory profit a poor guide to underlying earnings power.

Our Take On Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad's Profit Performance

In conclusion, Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad's accrual ratio suggests its statutory earnings are of good quality, but on the other hand the profits were boosted by unusual items. Based on these factors, we think it's very unlikely that Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad's statutory profits make it seem much weaker than it is. With this in mind, we wouldn't consider investing in a stock unless we had a thorough understanding of the risks. Case in point: We've spotted 4 warning signs for Choo Bee Metal Industries Berhad you should be mindful of and 1 of these is significant.

In this article we've looked at a number of factors that can impair the utility of profit numbers, as a guide to a business. But there are plenty of other ways to inform your opinion of a company. For example, many people consider a high return on equity as an indication of favorable business economics, while others like to 'follow the money' and search out stocks that insiders are buying. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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