Yahoo Finance Are Strong Financial Prospects The Force That Is Driving The Momentum In Tennant Company's NYSE:TNC) Stock?
Most readers would already be aware that Tennant's (NYSE:TNC) stock increased significantly by 12% over the past three months. Given that the market rewards strong financials in the long-term, we wonder if that is the case in this instance. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Tennant's ROE today.
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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
View our latest analysis for Tennant
How Is ROE Calculated?
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 Tennant is:
13% = US$60m ÷ US$443m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2021).
The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.13 in profit.
Why Is ROE Important For 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.
Tennant's Earnings Growth And 13% ROE
To begin with, Tennant seems to have a respectable ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 10% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. This probably laid the ground for Tennant's moderate 17% net income growth seen over the past five years.
As a next step, we compared Tennant's net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 8.6%.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. What is TNC worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether TNC is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Tennant Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
Tennant has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 37% (or a retention ratio of 63%) and a respectable amount of growth in earnings as we saw above, meaning that the company has been making efficient use of its profits.
Additionally, Tennant has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 22% over the next three years. However, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much despite the lower expected payout ratio.
Conclusion
In total, we are pretty happy with Tennant's performance. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business, and at a high rate of return. Unsurprisingly, this has led to an impressive earnings growth. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. 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.
