Yahoo Finance Is Dunelm Group plc's(LON:DNLM) Recent Stock Performance Tethered To Its Strong Fundamentals?
Dunelm Group's (LON:DNLM) stock is up by a considerable 7.4% over the past 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. Specifically, we decided to study Dunelm Group's ROE in this article.
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
See our latest analysis for Dunelm Group
How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for ROE is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Dunelm Group is:
43% = UK£110m ÷ UK£256m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every £1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated £0.43 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. 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.
Dunelm Group's Earnings Growth And 43% ROE
Firstly, we acknowledge that Dunelm Group has a significantly high ROE. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 11% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. However, for some reason, the higher returns aren't reflected in Dunelm Group's meagre five year net income growth average of 2.7%. That's a bit unexpected from a company which has such a high rate of return. A few likely reasons why this could happen is that the company could have a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.
Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that the growth figure reported by Dunelm Group compares quite favourably to the industry average, which shows a decline of 1.9% in the same period.
Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is Dunelm Group fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.
Is Dunelm Group Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
With a high three-year median payout ratio of 58% (or a retention ratio of 42%), most of Dunelm Group's profits are being paid to shareholders. This definitely contributes to the low earnings growth seen by the company.
Moreover, Dunelm Group has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 48% of its profits over the next three years. However, Dunelm Group's ROE is predicted to rise to 74% despite there being no anticipated change in its payout ratio.
Conclusion
On the whole, we feel that Dunelm Group's performance has been quite good. 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. 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.
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.
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