SciPlay | SCPLIt's common for many investors, especially those who are inexperienced, to buy shares in companies with a good story even if these companies are loss-making. Unfortunately, these high risk investments often have little probability of ever paying off, and many investors pay a price to learn their lesson. While a well funded company may sustain losses for years, it will need to generate a profit eventually, or else investors will move on and the company will wither away.
If this kind of company isn't your style, you like companies that generate revenue, and even earn profits, then you may well be interested in SciPlay. While this doesn't necessarily speak to whether it's undervalued, the profitability of the business is enough to warrant some appreciation especially if its growing.
If a company can keep growing earnings per share long enough, its share price should eventually follow. That makes EPS growth an attractive quality for any company. We can see that in the last three years SciPlay grew its EPS by 13% per year. That's a good rate of growth, if it can be sustained.
Careful consideration of revenue growth and earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) margins can help inform a view on the sustainability of the recent profit growth. While SciPlay did well to grow revenue over the last year, EBIT margins were dampened at the same time. If EBIT margins are able to stay balanced and this revenue growth continues, then we should see brighter days ahead.
You can take a look at the company's revenue and earnings growth trend, in the chart below. Click on the chart to see the exact numbers.You don't drive with your eyes on the rear-view mirror, so you might be more interested in this free report showing analyst forecasts for SciPlay's future profits.
It's a good habit to check into a company's remuneration policies to ensure that the CEO and management team aren't putting their own interests before that of the shareholder with excessive salary packages. Our analysis has discovered that the median total compensation for the CEOs of companies like SciPlay with market caps between US$2.0b and US$6.4b is about US$6.7m.
The CEO of SciPlay only received US$3.3m in total compensation for the year ending December 2022. That's clearly well below average, so at a glance that arrangement seems generous to shareholders and points to a modest remuneration culture. CEO remuneration levels are not the most important metric for investors, but when the pay is modest, that does support enhanced alignment between the CEO and the ordinary shareholders. It can also be a sign of good governance, more generally.
One important encouraging feature of SciPlay is that it is growing profits. To add to this, the modest CEO compensation should tell investors that the directors have an active interest in delivering the best for shareholders. So based on its merits, the stock deserves further research, if not an addition to your watchlist. While we've looked at the quality of the earnings, we haven't yet done any work to value the stock. So if you like to buy cheap, you may want to check if SciPlay is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.
Shares of SciPlay Corp. rose after the company agreed to be acquired by Light & Wonder.
There's always the possibility of doing well buying stocks that are not growing earnings and do not have insiders buying shares. But for those who consider these important metrics, we encourage you to check out companies that do have those features or you can count on our experts.
