Yahoo Finance Is Empire Company Limited's (TSE:EMP.A) Recent Performance Tethered To Its Attractive Financial Prospects?
Empire's (TSE:EMP.A) stock up by 4.3% over the past month. Given its impressive performance, we decided to study the company's key financial indicators as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Empire'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. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
See our latest analysis for Empire
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for return on equity is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Empire is:
17% = CA$764m ÷ CA$4.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to May 2021).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each CA$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made CA$0.17 in profit.
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. 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.
Empire's Earnings Growth And 17% ROE
At first glance, Empire seems to have a decent ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 12% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. This probably laid the ground for Empire's significant 74% net income growth seen over the past five years. However, there could also be other causes behind this growth. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.
Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Empire's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 9.6% in the same period, which is great to see.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about Empire's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.
Is Empire Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
Empire's three-year median payout ratio to shareholders is 24%, which is quite low. This implies that the company is retaining 76% of its profits. So it looks like Empire is reinvesting profits heavily to grow its business, which shows in its earnings growth.
Besides, Empire has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders.
Summary
On the whole, we feel that Empire's performance has been quite good. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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