Yahoo Finance Centuria Office REIT's (ASX:COF) Stock Has Shown A Decent Performance: Have Financials A Role To Play?
Centuria Office REIT's (ASX:COF) stock is up by 2.0% over the past week. We wonder if and what role the company's financials play in that price change as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. Specifically, we decided to study Centuria Office REIT's ROE in this article.
Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.
Check out our latest analysis for Centuria Office REIT
How Do You 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 Centuria Office REIT is:
1.6% = AU$20m ÷ AU$1.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).
The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. That means that for every A$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated A$0.02 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. 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 Centuria Office REIT's Earnings Growth And 1.6% ROE
It is quite clear that Centuria Office REIT's ROE is rather low. Even compared to the average industry ROE of 6.7%, the company's ROE is quite dismal. However, the moderate 5.5% net income growth seen by Centuria Office REIT over the past five years is definitely a positive. Therefore, the growth in earnings could probably have been caused by other variables. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.
We then performed a comparison between Centuria Office REIT's net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 5.3% in the same period.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. 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 COF fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.
Is Centuria Office REIT Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Centuria Office REIT has a high three-year median payout ratio of 86%. This means that it has only 14% of its income left to reinvest into its business. However, it's not unusual to see a REIT with such a high payout ratio mainly due to statutory requirements. Despite this, the company's earnings grew moderately as we saw above.
Additionally, Centuria Office REIT has paid dividends over a period of six 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 over the next three years is expected to be approximately 90%. Still, forecasts suggest that Centuria Office REIT's future ROE will rise to 7.9% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.
Summary
Overall, we feel that Centuria Office REIT certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Namely, its high earnings growth. We do however feel that the earnings growth number could have been even higher, had the company been reinvesting more of its earnings and paid out less dividends. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.
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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