We think all investors should try to buy and hold high quality multi-year winners. While not every stock performs well, when investors win, they can win big. To wit, the Stealth Group Holdings Ltd (ASX:SGI) share price has soared 963% over five years. If that doesn’t get you thinking about long term investing, we don’t know what will. On top of that, the share price is up 76% in about a 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.

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There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company’s share price and its earnings per share (EPS).

During the last half decade, Stealth Group Holdings became profitable. Sometimes, the start of profitability is a major inflection point that can signal fast earnings growth to come, which in turn justifies very strong share price gains.

The company’s earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

It is of course excellent to see how Stealth Group Holdings has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. If you are thinking of buying or selling Stealth Group Holdings stock, you should check out this FREE detailed report on its balance sheet.

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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Stealth Group Holdings, it has a TSR of 990% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. And there’s no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

We’re pleased to report that Stealth Group Holdings shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 176% over one year. That’s including the dividend. That’s better than the annualised return of 61% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. 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. For instance, we’ve identified 4 warning signs for Stealth Group Holdings (1 is concerning) that you should be aware of.