Yahoo Finance Should Weakness in Jardine Cycle & Carriage Limited's (SGX:C07) Stock Be Seen As A Sign That Market Will Correct The Share Price Given Decent Financials?
Jardine Cycle & Carriage (SGX:C07) has had a rough three months with its share price down 11%. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. Specifically, we decided to study Jardine Cycle & Carriage'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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.
Check out our latest analysis for Jardine Cycle & Carriage
How Is ROE Calculated?
Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Jardine Cycle & Carriage is:
15% = US$2.5b ÷ US$17b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each SGD1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made SGD0.15 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. 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. 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.
Jardine Cycle & Carriage's Earnings Growth And 15% ROE
At first glance, Jardine Cycle & Carriage seems to have a decent ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 11% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. As you might expect, the 3.6% net income decline reported by Jardine Cycle & Carriage is a bit of a surprise. Therefore, there might be some other aspects that could explain this. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.
So, as a next step, we compared Jardine Cycle & Carriage's performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 11% in the same period.
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. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. What is C07 worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether C07 is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Jardine Cycle & Carriage Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Looking at its three-year median payout ratio of 44% (or a retention ratio of 56%) which is pretty normal, Jardine Cycle & Carriage's declining earnings is rather baffling as one would expect to see a fair bit of growth when a company is retaining a good portion of its profits. It looks like there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.
Moreover, Jardine Cycle & Carriage 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's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 62% over the next three years. However, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much despite the higher expected payout ratio.
Summary
Overall, we feel that Jardine Cycle & Carriage certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a high ROE and and a high reinvestment rate. We believe that there might be some outside factors that could be having a negative impact on the business. With that said, we studied current analyst estimates and discovered that analysts expect the company's earnings growth to improve slightly. The company's existing shareholders might have some respite after all. 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.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
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.
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