$Laureate Education (LAUR.US)$ It is an American company lis...

It is an American company listed at $14 in 2017. The current price is 11.75. Since listing, the stock price has dropped 19%. The stock price rose 36.5% in the last year, which is one of the few rising stocks in the sector.

Revenue has shown a rapid downward trend over the past 5 years. Revenue in 2021 was only 25% of 2017, and operating profit also dropped from 397 million in 2017 to less than 70 million. What is interesting is that net profit plummeted to loss in 2020 after two years of continuous increase. Net profit was 200 million in 2021, which is a sharp departure from operating profit.

The income statement shows that the interest burden has declined from 340 million to 42 million over the past five years. Coupled with serious interference from special income items, income tax expenses and subsidies have also fluctuated greatly. Profits are difficult to predict, but overall, the scale of the business is seriously shrinking.

The balance ratio has declined a lot over the past 5 years. The company is in the process of reducing leverage, which can also be seen from the drastic reduction in interest expenses.

Net operating income has continued to decline over the past 5 years, and 2021 has entered a net outflow range. What is interesting is that net investment inflows began in 2018, mainly from net cash flow from business transactions, while net financing outflows have continued to expand. This appears to be an external performance of a company that is trying to reduce debt by selling its business.

Meanwhile, the company's return on net assets increased to 38.5 before 2020, and recovered to 11.3% in 2021 after losing money in 2020. Gross margin has increased from 16.3% in the past 5 years to 25% in 2021, and there is a clear trend of improvement. The net interest rate recovered to 18.8% in 2021.

Overall, the company's fundamentals have changed greatly, from a highly leveraged low return on net assets to a low leveraged high return on net assets. However, at present, the return on net assets has just come out of a low point. The absolute value is not attractive, and the sharp contraction in the company's business will take time to recover.

Currently, the price-earnings ratio is 11.65 times, and the price-earnings ratio is 7.45 times TTM. We can observe a few more quarters.