Earnings Troubles May Signal Larger Issues for Collins Property Group (JSE:CPP) Shareholders

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24-05-2025

Last week's earnings announcement from Collins Property Group Limited (JSE:CPP) was disappointing to investors, with a sluggish profit figure. We did some further digging and think they have a few more reasons to be concerned beyond the statutory profit.
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To understand the value of a company's earnings growth, it is imperative to consider any dilution of shareholders' interests. In fact, Collins Property Group increased the number of shares on issue by 28% over the last twelve months by issuing new shares. Therefore, each share now receives a smaller portion of profit. To talk about net income, without noticing earnings per share, is to be distracted by the big numbers while ignoring the smaller numbers that talk to per share value. Check out Collins Property Group's historical EPS growth by clicking on this link.
As you can see above, Collins Property Group has been growing its net income over the last few years, with an annualized gain of 66% over three years. But EPS was only up 29% per year, in the exact same period. Net profit actually dropped by 51% in the last year. Unfortunately for shareholders, though, the earnings per share result was even worse, declining 60%. And so, you can see quite clearly that dilution is having a rather significant impact on shareholders.
If Collins Property Group's EPS can grow over time then that drastically improves the chances of the share price moving in the same direction. But on the other hand, we'd be far less excited to learn profit (but not EPS) was improving. For the ordinary retail shareholder, EPS is a great measure to check your hypothetical "share" of the company's profit.
Note: we always recommend investors check balance sheet strength. Click here to be taken to our balance sheet analysis of Collins Property Group.
Finally, we should also consider the fact that unusual items boosted Collins Property Group's net profit by R208m over the last year. While it's always nice to have higher profit, a large contribution from unusual items sometimes dampens our enthusiasm. We ran the numbers on most publicly listed companies worldwide, and it's very common for unusual items to be once-off in nature. And, after all, that's exactly what the accounting terminology implies. Assuming those unusual items don't show up again in the current year, we'd thus expect profit to be weaker next year (in the absence of business growth, that is).
In its last report Collins Property Group benefitted from unusual items which boosted its profit, which could make the profit seem better than it really is on a sustainable basis. And furthermore, it went and issued plenty of new shares, ensuring that each shareholder (who did not tip more money in) now owns a smaller proportion of the company. For the reasons mentioned above, we think that a perfunctory glance at Collins Property Group's statutory profits might make it look better than it really is on an underlying level. Keep in mind, when it comes to analysing a stock it's worth noting the risks involved. When we did our research, we found 5 warning signs for Collins Property Group (1 doesn't sit too well with us!) that we believe deserve your full attention.
Our examination of Collins Property Group has focussed on certain factors that can make its earnings look better than they are. And, on that basis, we are somewhat skeptical. But there is always more to discover if you are capable of focussing your mind on minutiae. Some people consider a high return on equity to be a good sign of a quality business. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks with high insider ownership.
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