Sanki Engineering (TSE:1961) stock performs better than its underlying earnings growth over last five years

Simply Wall St · 06/10 00:52

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%. Long term Sanki Engineering Co., Ltd. (TSE:1961) shareholders would be well aware of this, since the stock is up 214% in five years. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 27% gain in the last three months.

Since the stock has added JP¥8.5b to its market cap in the past week alone, let's see if underlying performance has been driving long-term returns.

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While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. 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.

Over half a decade, Sanki Engineering managed to grow its earnings per share at 21% a year. This EPS growth is reasonably close to the 26% average annual increase in the share price. This indicates that investor sentiment towards the company has not changed a great deal. In fact, the share price seems to largely reflect the EPS 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
TSE:1961 Earnings Per Share Growth June 10th 2025

We know that Sanki Engineering has improved its bottom line over the last three years, but what does the future have in store? Take a more thorough look at Sanki Engineering's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.

Portfolio Valuation calculation on simply wall st

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Sanki Engineering, it has a TSR of 310% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Sanki Engineering shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 89% over the last year. And that does include the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 33% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Even so, be aware that Sanki Engineering is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies we expect will grow earnings.

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