Yahoo Finance Are Strong Financial Prospects The Force That Is Driving The Momentum In HelloFresh SE's ETR:HFG) Stock?
Most readers would already be aware that HelloFresh's (ETR:HFG) stock increased significantly by 54% over the past three months. Given the company's impressive performance, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely as a company's financial health over the long-term usually dictates market outcomes. Specifically, we decided to study HelloFresh's ROE in this article.
Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
See our latest analysis for HelloFresh
How To 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 HelloFresh is:
26% = €76m ÷ €289m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2020).
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every €1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of €0.26.
Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learnt that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. 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.
HelloFresh's Earnings Growth And 26% ROE
Firstly, we acknowledge that HelloFresh has a significantly high ROE. Secondly, even when compared to the industry average of 12% the company's ROE is quite impressive. So, the substantial 32% net income growth seen by HelloFresh over the past five years isn't overly surprising.
As a next step, we compared HelloFresh's net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 16%.
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. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if HelloFresh is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.
Is HelloFresh Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Given that HelloFresh doesn't pay any dividend to its shareholders, we infer that the company has been reinvesting all of its profits to grow its business.
Conclusion
On the whole, we feel that HelloFresh's performance has been quite good. 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. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. 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. 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. Thank you for reading.
