Esprit Holdings Limited (HKG:330) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 101% in the last month, although it is still struggling to make up recently lost ground. Still, the 30-day jump doesn't change the fact that longer term shareholders have seen their stock decimated by the 65% share price drop in the last twelve months.

Even after such a large jump in price, there still wouldn't be many who think Esprit Holdings' price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.1x is worth a mention when the median P/S in Hong Kong's Specialty Retail industry is similar at about 0.4x. Although, it's not wise to simply ignore the P/S without explanation as investors may be disregarding a distinct opportunity or a costly mistake.

How Esprit Holdings Has Been Performing

As an illustration, revenue has deteriorated at Esprit Holdings over the last year, which is not ideal at all. Perhaps investors believe the recent revenue performance is enough to keep in line with the industry, which is keeping the P/S from dropping off. If you like the company, you'd at least be hoping this is the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's not quite in favour.

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The P/S Ratio?

The only time you'd be comfortable seeing a P/S like Esprit Holdings' is when the company's growth is tracking the industry closely.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 16% decrease to the company's top line. That put a dampener on the good run it was having over the longer-term as its three-year revenue growth is still a noteworthy 18% in total. So we can start by confirming that the company has generally done a good job of growing revenue over that time, even though it had some hiccups along the way.

Comparing the recent medium-term revenue trends against the industry's one-year growth forecast of 15% shows it's noticeably less attractive.

In light of this, it's curious that Esprit Holdings' P/S sits in line with the majority of other companies. It seems most investors are ignoring the fairly limited recent growth rates and are willing to pay up for exposure to the stock. They may be setting themselves up for future disappointment if the P/S falls to levels more in line with recent growth rates.

What We Can Learn From Esprit Holdings' P/S?

Esprit Holdings' stock has a lot of momentum behind it lately, which has brought its P/S level with the rest of the industry. While the price-to-sales ratio shouldn't be the defining factor in whether you buy a stock or not, it's quite a capable barometer of revenue expectations.

We've established that Esprit Holdings' average P/S is a bit surprising since its recent three-year growth is lower than the wider industry forecast. When we see weak revenue with slower than industry growth, we suspect the share price is at risk of declining, bringing the P/S back in line with expectations. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve, it's hard to accept the current share price as fair value.

And what about other risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Esprit Holdings (of which 1 is significant!) you should know about.

Of course, profitable companies with a history of great earnings growth are generally safer bets. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have reasonable P/E ratios and have grown earnings strongly.

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