Yahoo Finance Is Korvest Ltd's (ASX:KOV) Stock's Recent Performance A Reflection Of Its Financial Health?
Korvest's (ASX:KOV) stock up by 6.3% over the past three months. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term financial health, we decided to study the company’s fundamentals to see if they could be influencing the market. Specifically, we decided to study Korvest's ROE in this article.
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 short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
Check out our latest analysis for Korvest
How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?
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 Korvest is:
17% = AU$6.1m ÷ AU$36m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2021).
The 'return' is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each A$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made A$0.17 in profit.
What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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.
Korvest's Earnings Growth And 17% ROE
At first glance, Korvest seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 13%. This probably laid the ground for Korvest's significant 54% net income growth seen over the past five years. However, there could also be other causes behind this growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.
Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Korvest's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 26% in the same period, which is great to see.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Korvest is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.
Is Korvest Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
Korvest has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 81%, meaning the company only retains 19% of its income. This implies that the company has been able to achieve high earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.
Besides, Korvest has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. 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 is expected to keep paying out approximately 86% of its profits over the next three years.
Summary
In total, we are pretty happy with Korvest's performance. In particular, its high ROE is quite noteworthy and also the probable explanation behind its considerable earnings growth. Yet, the company is retaining a small portion of its profits. Which means that the company has been able to grow its earnings in spite of it, so that's not too bad. Until now, we have only just grazed the surface of the company's past performance by looking at the company's fundamentals. So it may be worth checking this free detailed graph of Korvest's past earnings, as well as revenue and cash flows to get a deeper insight into the company's performance.
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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