Yahoo Finance Is Edgewell Personal Care Company's (NYSE:EPC) Recent Price Movement Underpinned By Its Weak Fundamentals?
With its stock down 13% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Edgewell Personal Care (NYSE:EPC). We, however decided to study the company's financials to determine if they have got anything to do with the price decline. Stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financial performance over the long term, and therefore we decided to pay more attention to the company's financial performance. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Edgewell Personal Care's ROE today.
ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.
See our latest analysis for Edgewell Personal Care
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
Return on equity 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 Edgewell Personal Care is:
7.9% = US$119m ÷ US$1.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).
The 'return' is the yearly profit. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.08 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.
A Side By Side comparison of Edgewell Personal Care's Earnings Growth And 7.9% ROE
At first glance, Edgewell Personal Care's ROE doesn't look very promising. 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 21%. Hence, the flat earnings seen by Edgewell Personal Care over the past five years could probably be the result of it having a lower ROE.
As a next step, we compared Edgewell Personal Care's net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 24% in the same period.
Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is EPC fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.
Is Edgewell Personal Care Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Despite having a normal three-year median payout ratio of 28% (implying that the company keeps 72% of its income) over the last three years, Edgewell Personal Care has seen a negligible amount of growth in earnings as we saw above. Therefore, there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.
In addition, Edgewell Personal Care has been paying dividends over a period of at least ten years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is way more important to the management even if it comes at the cost of business growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 21% over the next three years. As a result, the expected drop in Edgewell Personal Care's payout ratio explains the anticipated rise in the company's future ROE to 9.6%, over the same period.
Conclusion
Overall, we have mixed feelings about Edgewell Personal Care. While the company does have a high rate of profit retention, its low rate of return is probably hampering its earnings growth. That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.
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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.
