Yahoo Finance Is Unilever PLC’s (LON:ULVR) ROE Of 45.08% Sustainable?
Unilever PLC (LSE:ULVR) outperformed the Personal Products industry on the basis of its ROE – producing a higher 45.08% relative to the peer average of 13.54% over the past 12 months. While the impressive ratio tells us that ULVR has made significant profits from little equity capital, ROE doesn’t tell us if ULVR has borrowed debt to make this happen. Today, we’ll take a closer look at some factors like financial leverage to see how sustainable ULVR’s ROE is. See our latest analysis for Unilever
What you must know about ROE
Firstly, Return on Equity, or ROE, is simply the percentage of last years’ earning against the book value of shareholders’ equity. It essentially shows how much the company can generate in earnings given the amount of equity it has raised. Generally speaking, a higher ROE is preferred; however, there are other factors we must also consider before making any conclusions.
Return on Equity = Net Profit ÷ Shareholders Equity
ROE is assessed against cost of equity, which is measured using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) – but let’s not dive into the details of that today. For now, let’s just look at the cost of equity number for Unilever, which is 8.28%. This means Unilever returns enough to cover its own cost of equity, with a buffer of 36.80%. This sustainable practice implies that the company pays less for its capital than what it generates in return. ROE can be split up into three useful ratios: net profit margin, asset turnover, and financial leverage. This is called the Dupont Formula:
Dupont Formula
ROE = profit margin × asset turnover × financial leverage
ROE = (annual net profit ÷ sales) × (sales ÷ assets) × (assets ÷ shareholders’ equity)
ROE = annual net profit ÷ shareholders’ equity
Basically, profit margin measures how much of revenue trickles down into earnings which illustrates how efficient the business is with its cost management. Asset turnover reveals how much revenue can be generated from Unilever’s asset base. The most interesting ratio, and reflective of sustainability of its ROE, is financial leverage. Since ROE can be inflated by excessive debt, we need to examine Unilever’s debt-to-equity level. Currently the debt-to-equity ratio stands at a high 169.81%, which means its above-average ROE is driven by significant debt levels.
Next Steps:
ROE is one of many ratios which meaningfully dissects financial statements, which illustrates the quality of a company. Unilever’s above-industry ROE is encouraging, and is also in excess of its cost of equity. With debt capital in excess of equity, ROE may be inflated by the use of debt funding, raising questions over the sustainability of the company’s returns. ROE is a helpful signal, but it is definitely not sufficient on its own to make an investment decision.
For Unilever, there are three essential aspects you should further research:
Financial Health: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.
Valuation: What is Unilever worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether Unilever is currently mispriced by the market.
Other High-Growth Alternatives : Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of Unilever? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large growth potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!
To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.
