Long term investing can be life changing when you buy and hold the truly great businesses. And we've seen some truly amazing gains over the years. To wit, the Kelly Partners Group Holdings Limited (ASX:KPG) share price has soared 809% over five years. If that doesn't get you thinking about long term investing, we don't know what will. It's also good to see the share price up 22% over the last quarter. We love happy stories like this one. The company should be really proud of that performance!

So let's assess the underlying fundamentals over the last 5 years and see if they've moved in lock-step with shareholder returns.

Check out our latest analysis for Kelly Partners Group Holdings

While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

Kelly Partners Group Holdings' earnings per share are down 6.2% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.

Essentially, it doesn't seem likely that investors are focused on EPS. Because earnings per share don't seem to match up with the share price, we'll take a look at other metrics instead.

We doubt the modest 0.7% dividend yield is attracting many buyers to the stock. On the other hand, Kelly Partners Group Holdings' revenue is growing nicely, at a compound rate of 19% over the last five years. It's quite possible that management are prioritizing revenue growth over EPS growth at the moment.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

Take a more thorough look at Kelly Partners Group Holdings' financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for Kelly Partners Group Holdings the TSR over the last 5 years was 956%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Kelly Partners Group Holdings shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 47% over the last year. And that does include the dividend. However, that falls short of the 60% TSR per annum it has made for shareholders, each year, over five years. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should be aware of the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Kelly Partners Group Holdings .