Austar Lifesciences Limited's (HKG:6118) Share Price Boosted 27% But Its Business Prospects Need A Lift Too

Austar Lifesciences Limited (HKG:6118) shares have continued their recent momentum with a 27% gain in the last month alone. Looking back a bit further, it's encouraging to see the stock is up 79% in the last year.

In spite of the firm bounce in price, Austar Lifesciences' price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.5x might still make it look like a strong buy right now compared to the wider Life Sciences industry in Hong Kong, where around half of the companies have P/S ratios above 6x and even P/S above 9x are quite common. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly reduced P/S.

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View our latest analysis for Austar Lifesciences

How Austar Lifesciences Has Been Performing

As an illustration, revenue has deteriorated at Austar Lifesciences over the last year, which is not ideal at all. One possibility is that the P/S is low because investors think the company won't do enough to avoid underperforming the broader industry in the near future. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

We don't have analyst forecasts, but you can see how recent trends are setting up the company for the future by checking out our free report on Austar Lifesciences' earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Is There Any Revenue Growth Forecasted For Austar Lifesciences?

Austar Lifesciences' P/S ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver very poor growth or even falling revenue, and importantly, perform much worse than the industry.

Taking a look back first, the company's revenue growth last year wasn't something to get excited about as it posted a disappointing decline of 5.4%. This means it has also seen a slide in revenue over the longer-term as revenue is down 35% in total over the last three years. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing revenue over that time.

Comparing that to the industry, which is predicted to deliver 17% growth in the next 12 months, the company's downward momentum based on recent medium-term revenue results is a sobering picture.

With this information, we are not surprised that Austar Lifesciences is trading at a P/S lower than the industry. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/S has reached a floor yet with revenue going in reverse. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as recent revenue trends are already weighing down the shares.

What Does Austar Lifesciences' P/S Mean For Investors?

Even after such a strong price move, Austar Lifesciences' P/S still trails 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.

It's no surprise that Austar Lifesciences maintains its low P/S off the back of its sliding revenue over the medium-term. Right now shareholders are accepting the low P/S as they concede future revenue probably won't provide any pleasant surprises either. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.

It is also worth noting that we have found 4 warning signs for Austar Lifesciences (2 make us uncomfortable!) that you need to take into consideration.

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.