De Wet, Johannes H.v.H. (Johannes Hendrik van Heerden)2014-02-242014-02-242013De Wet, JHvH 2013, 'Earnings per share as a measure of financial performance : does it obscure more than it reveals?', Corporate Ownership and Control, vol 10, no. 4, pp. 265-275.http://hdl.handle.net/2263/36674The well-known earnings per share measure is simultaneously very popular but also potentially misleading. This study briefly discusses the popularity of EPS and then outlines three limitations, namely the inability of EPS to reflect shareholder value, EPS management and an inherent bias towards positive EPS growth. A case study approach is used to analyze the EPS growth of three listed companies and the four major components of EPS growth are identified. These are inflation, increased asset investment due to retained profit and debt, operating leverage and financial leverage. It is indicated how an "excess" EPS growth can be determined and it was found that none of the three case study companies was able to generate positive "excess" EPS growth.enThis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Earnings per share (EPS)EPS growthEarnings managementOperating leverageFinancial leverageSustainable growth rateArticle