XBP Europe Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:XBP) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 29% in the last month, although it is still struggling to make up recently lost ground. But the last month did very little to improve the 93% share price decline over the last year.

Although its price has surged higher, XBP Europe Holdings may still be sending very bullish signals at the moment with its price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.2x, since almost half of all companies in the Diversified Financial industry in the United States have P/S ratios greater than 2.8x and even P/S higher than 5x are not unusual. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly reduced P/S.

What Does XBP Europe Holdings' Recent Performance Look Like?

For instance, XBP Europe Holdings' receding revenue in recent times would have to be some food for thought. It might be that many expect the disappointing revenue performance to continue or accelerate, which has repressed the P/S. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

Is There Any Revenue Growth Forecasted For XBP Europe Holdings?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far underperform the industry for P/S ratios like XBP Europe Holdings' to be considered reasonable.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 1.8% decrease to the company's top line. This means it has also seen a slide in revenue over the longer-term as revenue is down 24% in total over the last three years. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of revenue growth.

In contrast to the company, the rest of the industry is expected to grow by 4.3% over the next year, which really puts the company's recent medium-term revenue decline into perspective.

With this information, we are not surprised that XBP Europe Holdings is trading at a P/S lower than the industry. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/S has reached a floor yet with revenue going in reverse. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as recent revenue trends are already weighing down the shares.

The Final Word

XBP Europe Holdings' recent share price jump still sees fails to bring its P/S alongside the industry median. Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-sales ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

As we suspected, our examination of XBP Europe Holdings revealed its shrinking revenue over the medium-term is contributing to its low P/S, given the industry is set to grow. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in revenue isn't great enough to justify a higher P/S ratio. If recent medium-term revenue trends continue, it's hard to see the share price moving strongly in either direction in the near future under these circumstances.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 4 warning signs for XBP Europe Holdings (3 are potentially serious!) that we have uncovered.

If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on XBP Europe Holdings, explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there.

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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.