Yahoo Finance Has Evolution Mining Limited's (ASX:EVN) Impressive Stock Performance Got Anything to Do With Its Fundamentals?
Evolution Mining (ASX:EVN) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 50% over the last three months. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely to see if they had a hand to play in the recent price move. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Evolution Mining'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 simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
View our latest analysis for Evolution Mining
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 Evolution Mining is:
9.9% = AU$323m ÷ AU$3.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).
The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every A$1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn A$0.10 in profit.
Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. 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.
Evolution Mining's Earnings Growth And 9.9% ROE
To begin with, Evolution Mining seems to have a respectable ROE. Yet, the fact that the company's ROE is lower than the industry average of 16% does temper our expectations. Although, we can see that Evolution Mining saw a modest net income growth of 7.9% over the past five years. Therefore, the growth in earnings could probably have been caused by other variables. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place. Bear in mind, the company does have a respectable level of ROE. It is just that the industry ROE is higher. So this also does lend some color to the fairly high earnings growth seen by the company.
We then compared Evolution Mining's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 33% in the same period, which is a bit concerning.
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). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. What is EVN worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether EVN is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Evolution Mining Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
While Evolution Mining has a three-year median payout ratio of 71% (which means it retains 29% of profits), the company has still seen a fair bit of earnings growth in the past, meaning that its high payout ratio hasn't hampered its ability to grow.
Besides, Evolution Mining has been paying dividends over a period of nine years. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 51% over the next three years. Regardless, the ROE is not expected to change much for the company despite the lower expected payout ratio.
Conclusion
Overall, we feel that Evolution Mining certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Its earnings have grown respectably as we saw earlier, which was likely achieved by the company reinvesting its earnings at a decent rate of return. Still, its earnings retention is quite low, so we wonder if the company's growth could be higher, were it to pay out less dividends and retain more of its profits? That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. 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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