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Are Strong Financial Prospects The Force That Is Driving The Momentum In Elders Limited's ASX:ELD) Stock?

Simply Wall St
·4-min read

Elders (ASX:ELD) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 7.8% over the last month. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Elders' 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. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

Check out our latest analysis for Elders

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

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So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Elders is:

19% = AU$125m ÷ AU$672m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each A$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made A$0.19 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

Elders' Earnings Growth And 19% ROE

At first glance, Elders seems to have a decent ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 4.8% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. Probably as a result of this, Elders was able to see a decent growth of 14% over the last five years.

When you consider the fact that the industry earnings have shrunk at a rate of 1.3% in the same period, the company's net income growth is pretty remarkable.

past-earnings-growth
past-earnings-growth

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. 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 ELD worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether ELD is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Elders Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Elders has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 27% (or a retention ratio of 73%) and a respectable amount of growth in earnings as we saw above, meaning that the company has been making efficient use of its profits.

Besides, Elders has been paying dividends over a period of three years. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to rise to 36% over the next three years. Despite the higher expected payout ratio, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with Elders' performance. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. 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.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.