Yahoo Finance Could The Market Be Wrong About Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE:CRL) Given Its Attractive Financial Prospects?
It is hard to get excited after looking at Charles River Laboratories International's (NYSE:CRL) recent performance, when its stock has declined 22% over the past three months. But if you pay close attention, you might gather that its strong financials could mean that the stock could potentially see an increase in value in the long-term, given how markets usually reward companies with good financial health. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Charles River Laboratories International's ROE today.
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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
Check out our latest analysis for Charles River Laboratories International
How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for ROE is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Charles River Laboratories International is:
16% = US$430m ÷ US$2.7b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.16 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.
Charles River Laboratories International's Earnings Growth And 16% ROE
At first glance, Charles River Laboratories International seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 17%. This probably goes some way in explaining Charles River Laboratories International's significant 23% net income growth over the past five years amongst other factors. We reckon that there could also be other factors at play here. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.
As a next step, we compared Charles River Laboratories International's net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 35% in the same period.
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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. What is CRL worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether CRL is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Charles River Laboratories International Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Charles River Laboratories International doesn't pay any dividend currently which essentially means that it has been reinvesting all of its profits into the business. This definitely contributes to the high earnings growth number that we discussed above.
Conclusion
Overall, we are quite pleased with Charles River Laboratories International's performance. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business, and at a high rate of return. As a result, the decent growth in its earnings is not surprising. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.
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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.
