Yahoo Finance Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About Stockland (ASX:SGP)?
Stockland (ASX:SGP) has had a rough week with its share price down 2.8%. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. In this article, we decided to focus on Stockland's ROE.
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
See our latest analysis for Stockland
How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?
ROE 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 Stockland is:
2.4% = AU$241m ÷ AU$10b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).
The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each A$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made A$0.02 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. 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.
Stockland's Earnings Growth And 2.4% ROE
As you can see, Stockland's ROE looks pretty weak. Even compared to the average industry ROE of 5.4%, the company's ROE is quite dismal. Although, we can see that Stockland saw a modest net income growth of 15% over the past five years. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. For example, it is possible that the company's management has made some good strategic decisions, or that the company has a low payout ratio.
We then performed a comparison between Stockland's net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 14% in the same 5-year period.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. 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 SGP worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether SGP is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Stockland Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Stockland seems to be paying out most of its income as dividends judging by its three-year median payout ratio of 74%, meaning the company retains only 26% of its income. However, this is typical for REITs as they are often required by law to distribute most of their earnings. In spite of this, the company was able to grow its earnings by a fair bit, as we saw above.
Additionally, Stockland 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 75%. Regardless, the future ROE for Stockland is predicted to rise to 8.4% despite there being not much change expected in its payout ratio.
Summary
On the whole, we do feel that Stockland has some positive attributes. While no doubt its earnings growth is pretty substantial, we do feel that the reinvestment rate is pretty low, meaning, the earnings growth number could have been significantly higher had the company been retaining more of its profits. 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 latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts 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.
