Yahoo Finance Should Weakness in Winpak Ltd.'s (TSE:WPK) Stock Be Seen As A Sign That Market Will Correct The Share Price Given Decent Financials?
With its stock down 6.1% over the past month, it is easy to disregard Winpak (TSE:WPK). However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. In this article, we decided to focus on Winpak's ROE.
Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
View our latest analysis for Winpak
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 Winpak is:
10% = US$120m ÷ US$1.2b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every CA$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated CA$0.10 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?
Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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. 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 Winpak's Earnings Growth And 10% ROE
To start with, Winpak's ROE looks acceptable. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 10%. However, we are curious as to how Winpak's decent returns still resulted in flat growth for Winpak in the past five years. So, there could be some other aspects that could potentially be preventing the company from growing. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.
As a next step, we compared Winpak's net income growth with the industry and discovered that the industry saw an average growth of 6.8% in the same period.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. 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. Is Winpak fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.
Is Winpak Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Winpak's low three-year median payout ratio of 5.4% (implying that the company keeps95% of its income) should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings to fuel its growth and this should be reflected in its growth number, but that's not the case.
Moreover, Winpak 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.
Conclusion
Overall, we feel that Winpak certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Yet, the low earnings growth is a bit concerning, especially given that the company has a high rate of return and is reinvesting ma huge portion of its profits. By the looks of it, there could be some other factors, not necessarily in control of the business, that's preventing growth. With that said, we studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that while the company has shrunk its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to grow, albeit marginally, in the future. 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.
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