Sixt's (ETR:SIX2) five-year total shareholder returns outpace the underlying earnings growth

Simply Wall St · 2d ago

The worst result, after buying shares in a company (assuming no leverage), would be if you lose all the money you put in. But on the bright side, if you buy shares in a high quality company at the right price, you can gain well over 100%. For example, the Sixt SE (ETR:SIX2) share price has soared 138% in the last half decade. Most would be very happy with that. It's also good to see the share price up 11% over the last quarter. But this move may well have been assisted by the reasonably buoyant market (up 8.5% in 90 days).

Since the long term performance has been good but there's been a recent pullback of 4.9%, let's check if the fundamentals match the share price.

See our latest analysis for Sixt

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. 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.

During five years of share price growth, Sixt achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 2.8% per year. This EPS growth is slower than the share price growth of 19% per year, over the same period. This suggests that market participants hold the company in higher regard, these days. And that's hardly shocking given the track record of growth.

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

earnings-per-share-growth
XTRA:SIX2 Earnings Per Share Growth March 13th 2025

This free interactive report on Sixt's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Sixt, it has a TSR of 173% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Sixt shareholders are down 1.6% for the year (even including dividends), but the market itself is up 17%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. On the bright side, long term shareholders have made money, with a gain of 22% per year over half a decade. It could be that the recent sell-off is an opportunity, so it may be worth checking the fundamental data for signs of a long term growth trend. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Even so, be aware that Sixt is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is a bit concerning...

But note: Sixt may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

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