Investors are often guided by the idea of discovering 'the next big thing', even if that means buying 'story stocks' without any revenue, let alone profit. But as Peter Lynch said in One Up On Wall Street, 'Long shots almost never pay off.' Loss making companies can act like a sponge for capital - so investors should be cautious that they're not throwing good money after bad.

So if this idea of high risk and high reward doesn't suit, you might be more interested in profitable, growing companies, like Héroux-Devtek (TSE:HRX). While profit isn't the sole metric that should be considered when investing, it's worth recognising businesses that can consistently produce it.

See our latest analysis for Héroux-Devtek

How Fast Is Héroux-Devtek Growing?

The market is a voting machine in the short term, but a weighing machine in the long term, so you'd expect share price to follow earnings per share (EPS) outcomes eventually. Therefore, there are plenty of investors who like to buy shares in companies that are growing EPS. It certainly is nice to see that Héroux-Devtek has managed to grow EPS by 22% per year over three years. As a general rule, we'd say that if a company can keep up that sort of growth, shareholders will be beaming.

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. The good news is that Héroux-Devtek is growing revenues, and EBIT margins improved by 4.7 percentage points to 10%, over the last year. That's great to see, on both counts.

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.

The trick, as an investor, is to find companies that are going to perform well in the future, not just in the past. While crystal balls don't exist, you can check our visualization of consensus analyst forecasts for Héroux-Devtek's future EPS 100% free.

Are Héroux-Devtek Insiders Aligned With All Shareholders?

It should give investors a sense of security owning shares in a company if insiders also own shares, creating a close alignment their interests. Shareholders will be pleased by the fact that insiders own Héroux-Devtek shares worth a considerable sum. Given insiders own a significant chunk of shares, currently valued at CA$116m, they have plenty of motivation to push the business to succeed. That holding amounts to 11% of the stock on issue, thus making insiders influential owners of the business and aligned with the interests of shareholders.