Yahoo Finance Is Scout24 SE's (ETR:G24) Recent Stock Performance Influenced By Its Financials In Any Way?
Most readers would already know that Scout24's (ETR:G24) stock increased by 5.0% over the past three months. We wonder if and what role the company's financials play in that price change as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Scout24's ROE today.
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.
View our latest analysis for Scout24
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 Scout24 is:
13% = €181m ÷ €1.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every €1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn €0.13 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.
Scout24's Earnings Growth And 13% ROE
To begin with, Scout24 seems to have a respectable ROE. Yet, the fact that the company's ROE is lower than the industry average of 18% does temper our expectations. Still, we can see that Scout24 has seen a remarkable net income growth of 25% over the past five years. Therefore, there could be other causes behind this growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently. However, not to forget, the company does have a decent ROE to begin with, just that it is lower than the industry average. So this certainly also provides some context to the high earnings growth seen by the company.
We then performed a comparison between Scout24's net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 27% in the same 5-year period.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. Is G24 fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.
Is Scout24 Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Scout24's significant three-year median payout ratio of 70% (where it is retaining only 30% of its income) suggests that the company has been able to achieve a high growth in earnings despite returning most of its income to shareholders.
Moreover, Scout24 is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of seven years of paying a dividend. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 44% over the next three years. However, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much despite the lower expected payout ratio.
Conclusion
Overall, we feel that Scout24 certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Especially the substantial growth in earnings backed by a decent ROE. Despite the company reinvesting only a small portion of its profits, it still has managed to grow its earnings so that is appreciable. 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 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.
