Yahoo Finance Balfour Beatty plc (LON:BBY) Stock Has Shown Weakness Lately But Financials Look Strong: Should Prospective Shareholders Make The Leap?
It is hard to get excited after looking at Balfour Beatty's (LON:BBY) recent performance, when its stock has declined 5.5% over the past month. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financial performance over the long term, which in this case looks quite promising. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Balfour Beatty's ROE today.
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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.
Check out our latest analysis for Balfour Beatty
How Is ROE Calculated?
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 Balfour Beatty is:
10% = UK£139m ÷ UK£1.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021).
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each £1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made £0.10 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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.
Balfour Beatty's Earnings Growth And 10% ROE
At first glance, Balfour Beatty seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 9.1%. However, we are curious as to how Balfour Beatty's decent returns still resulted in flat growth for Balfour Beatty in the past five years. We reckon that there could be some other factors at play here that's limiting the company's growth. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.
When you consider the fact that the industry earnings have shrunk at a rate of 2.7% in the same period, the company's net income growth is pretty remarkable.
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. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about Balfour Beatty's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.
Is Balfour Beatty Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Despite having a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 28% (meaning the company retains72% of profits) in the last three-year period, Balfour Beatty's earnings growth was more or les flat. So there could be some other explanation in that regard. For instance, the company's business may be deteriorating.
In addition, Balfour Beatty has been paying dividends over a period of at least ten years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is way more important to the management even if it comes at the cost of business growth. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 35% over the next three years. However, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much despite the higher expected payout ratio.
Summary
Overall, we are quite pleased with Balfour Beatty's performance. In particular, it's great to see that the company is investing heavily into its business and along with a high rate of return, that has resulted in a sizeable growth in its earnings. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. 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.
