When close to half the companies in Hong Kong have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 9x, you may consider China Overseas Land & Investment Limited (HKG:688) as an attractive investment with its 4.7x P/E ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the reduced P/E.

With earnings growth that's superior to most other companies of late, China Overseas Land & Investment has been doing relatively well. It might be that many expect the strong earnings performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the P/E. If not, then existing shareholders have reason to be quite optimistic about the future direction of the share price.

How Is China Overseas Land & Investment's Growth Trending?

The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/E as low as China Overseas Land & Investment's is when the company's growth is on track to lag the market.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company managed to grow earnings per share by a handy 10% last year. Still, lamentably EPS has fallen 42% in aggregate from three years ago, which is disappointing. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been undesirable for the company.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should generate growth of 1.5% per year as estimated by the analysts watching the company. That's shaping up to be materially lower than the 15% per annum growth forecast for the broader market.

In light of this, it's understandable that China Overseas Land & Investment's P/E sits below the majority of other companies. It seems most investors are expecting to see limited future growth and are only willing to pay a reduced amount for the stock.

The Key Takeaway

Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-earnings ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

We've established that China Overseas Land & Investment maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its forecast growth being lower than the wider market, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. It's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 1 warning sign for China Overseas Land & Investment that we have uncovered.

Of course, you might also be able to find a better stock than China Overseas Land & Investment. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have reasonable P/E ratios and have grown earnings strongly.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.