Yahoo Finance Is Coca-Cola HBC AG's (LON:CCH) Recent Stock Performance Tethered To Its Strong Fundamentals?
Most readers would already be aware that Coca-Cola HBC's (LON:CCH) stock increased significantly by 18% over the past three months. Given the company's impressive performance, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely as a company's financial health over the long-term usually dictates market outcomes. Specifically, we decided to study Coca-Cola HBC's ROE in this article.
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 short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
Check out our latest analysis for Coca-Cola HBC
How Is ROE Calculated?
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 Coca-Cola HBC is:
18% = €548m ÷ €3.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every £1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of £0.18.
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 all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.
A Side By Side comparison of Coca-Cola HBC's Earnings Growth And 18% ROE
At first glance, Coca-Cola HBC seems to have a decent ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 14% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. This probably laid the ground for Coca-Cola HBC's moderate 5.6% net income growth seen over the past five years.
Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that the growth figure reported by Coca-Cola HBC compares quite favourably to the industry average, which shows a decline of 0.1% in the same period.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. What is CCH worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether CCH is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Coca-Cola HBC Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
Coca-Cola HBC has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 48% (or a retention ratio of 52%) 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, Coca-Cola HBC has paid dividends over a period of nine 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 48%. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 17%.
Summary
On the whole, we feel that Coca-Cola HBC's performance has been quite good. 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. We also studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that the company's earnings growth is expected be similar to its current growth rate. 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.
