Yahoo Finance Does The Market Have A Low Tolerance For Young & Co.'s Brewery, P.L.C.'s (LON:YNGA) Mixed Fundamentals?
It is hard to get excited after looking at Young's Brewery's (LON:YNGA) recent performance, when its stock has declined 11% over the past three months. It seems that the market might have completely ignored the positive aspects of the company's fundamentals and decided to weigh-in more on the negative aspects. Fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes so it makes sense to study the company's financials. In this article, we decided to focus on Young's Brewery's ROE.
Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
See our latest analysis for Young's Brewery
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
ROE can be calculated by using the formula:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Young's Brewery is:
3.6% = UK£25m ÷ UK£700m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).
The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every £1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of £0.04.
What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?
Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.
A Side By Side comparison of Young's Brewery's Earnings Growth And 3.6% ROE
On the face of it, Young's Brewery's ROE is not much to talk about. We then compared the company's ROE to the broader industry and were disappointed to see that the ROE is lower than the industry average of 8.2%. Given the circumstances, the significant decline in net income by 40% seen by Young's Brewery over the last five years is not surprising. However, there could also be other factors causing the earnings to decline. For instance, the company has a very high payout ratio, or is faced with competitive pressures.
Next, when we compared with the industry, which has shrunk its earnings at a rate of 24% in the same period, we still found Young's Brewery's performance to be quite bleak, because the company has been shrinking its earnings faster than the industry.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Young's Brewery is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.
Is Young's Brewery Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
Despite having a normal three-year median payout ratio of 32% (where it is retaining 68% of its profits), Young's Brewery has seen a decline in earnings as we saw above. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.
Moreover, Young's Brewery has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 32%. However, Young's Brewery's ROE is predicted to rise to 5.8% despite there being no anticipated change in its payout ratio.
Conclusion
In total, we're a bit ambivalent about Young's Brewery's performance. Even though it appears to be retaining most of its profits, given the low ROE, investors may not be benefitting from all that reinvestment after all. The low earnings growth suggests our theory correct. Having said that, looking at current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings growth rate is expected to see a huge improvement. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.
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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.
