The excitement of investing in a company that can reverse its fortunes is a big draw for some speculators, so even companies that have no revenue, no profit, and a record of falling short, can manage to find investors. But the reality is that when a company loses money each year, for long enough, its investors will usually take their share of those losses. Loss-making companies are always racing against time to reach financial sustainability, so investors in these companies may be taking on more risk than they should.

Despite being in the age of tech-stock blue-sky investing, many investors still adopt a more traditional strategy; buying shares in profitable companies like Objective (ASX:OCL). Now this is not to say that the company presents the best investment opportunity around, but profitability is a key component to success in business.

View our latest analysis for Objective

How Quickly Is Objective Increasing Earnings Per Share?

Generally, companies experiencing growth in earnings per share (EPS) should see similar trends in share price. That makes EPS growth an attractive quality for any company. Impressively, Objective has grown EPS by 23% per year, compound, in the last three years. As a result, we can understand why the stock trades on a high multiple of trailing twelve month earnings.

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 Objective did well to grow revenue over the last year, EBIT margins were dampened at the same time. So it seems the future may hold further growth, especially if EBIT margins can remain steady.

In the chart below, you can see how the company has grown earnings and revenue, over time. Click on the chart to see the exact numbers.

Fortunately, we've got access to analyst forecasts of Objective's future profits. You can do your own forecasts without looking, or you can take a peek at what the professionals are predicting.

Are Objective Insiders Aligned With All Shareholders?

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. The median total compensation for CEOs of companies similar in size to Objective, with market caps between AU$586m and AU$2.3b, is around AU$1.5m.

The Objective CEO received total compensation of just AU$308k in the year to June 2023. That's clearly well below average, so at a glance that arrangement seems generous to shareholders and points to a modest remuneration culture. While the level of CEO compensation shouldn't be the biggest factor in how the company is viewed, modest remuneration is a positive, because it suggests that the board keeps shareholder interests in mind. It can also be a sign of good governance, more generally.