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Is Tate & Lyle plc's (LON:TATE) Stock's Recent Performance Being Led By Its Attractive Financial Prospects?

Tate & Lyle's (LON:TATE) stock is up by a considerable 12% over the past week. Given that the market rewards strong financials in the long-term, we wonder if that is the case in this instance. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Tate & Lyle's ROE today.

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 Tate & Lyle

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

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So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Tate & Lyle is:

17% = UK£247m ÷ UK£1.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. So, this means that for every £1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of £0.17.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Tate & Lyle's Earnings Growth And 17% ROE

At first glance, Tate & Lyle seems to have a decent ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 11% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. This certainly adds some context to Tate & Lyle's decent 14% net income growth seen over the past five years.

As a next step, we compared Tate & Lyle'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 5.4%.

past-earnings-growth
past-earnings-growth

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. 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 Tate & Lyle is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Tate & Lyle Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 56% (or a retention ratio of 44%) for Tate & Lyle suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of its income to its shareholders.

Moreover, Tate & Lyle is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 56% of its profits over the next three years. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 15%.

Summary

In total, we are pretty happy with Tate & Lyle's performance. Especially the high ROE, Which has contributed to the impressive growth seen in earnings. Despite the company reinvesting only a small portion of its profits, it still has managed to grow its earnings so that is appreciable. That being so, a study of the latest analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to see a slowdown in its future earnings growth. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.

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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.