Yahoo Finance Fortescue Ltd's (ASX:FMG) Stock Has Shown Weakness Lately But Financial Prospects Look Decent: Is The Market Wrong?
With its stock down 5.8% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Fortescue (ASX:FMG). 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 Fortescue's ROE.
ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
View our latest analysis for Fortescue
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 Fortescue is:
30% = US$5.8b ÷ US$19b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every A$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated A$0.30 in profit.
What Has ROE Got To Do With 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 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.
Fortescue's Earnings Growth And 30% ROE
First thing first, we like that Fortescue has an impressive ROE. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 10% which is quite remarkable. This likely paved the way for the modest 12% net income growth seen by Fortescue over the past five years.
We then compared Fortescue's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 21% in the same 5-year period, which is a bit concerning.
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. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. What is FMG worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether FMG is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Fortescue Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Fortescue has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 74%, meaning that it is left with only 26% to reinvest into its business. This implies that the company has been able to achieve decent earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.
Additionally, Fortescue has paid dividends over a period of at least ten 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 60%. However, Fortescue's future ROE is expected to decline to 16% despite there being not much change anticipated in the company's payout ratio.
Summary
On the whole, we do feel that Fortescue has some positive attributes. Its earnings growth is decent, and the high ROE does contribute to that growth. However, investors could have benefitted even more from the high ROE, had the company been reinvesting more of its earnings. With that said, on studying the latest analyst forecasts, we found that while the company has seen growth in its past earnings, analysts expect its future earnings to shrink. 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.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
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.
