Yahoo Finance XP Power Limited's (LON:XPP) Stock Has Shown Weakness Lately But Financial Prospects Look Decent: Is The Market Wrong?
It is hard to get excited after looking at XP Power's (LON:XPP) recent performance, when its stock has declined 13% over the past month. However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Particularly, we will be paying attention to XP Power's ROE today.
Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.
View our latest analysis for XP Power
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 XP Power is:
12% = UK£19m ÷ UK£151m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).
The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every £1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn £0.12 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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. 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.
XP Power's Earnings Growth And 12% ROE
To start with, XP Power's ROE looks acceptable. Even when compared to the industry average of 11% the company's ROE looks quite decent. Despite the modest returns, XP Power's five year net income growth was quite low, averaging at only 3.9%. A few likely reasons that could be keeping earnings growth low are - the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.
As a next step, we compared XP Power's net income growth with the industry and found that the company has a similar growth figure when compared with the industry average growth rate of 4.3% in the same period.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. 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. Is XP Power fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.
Is XP Power Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
XP Power has a three-year median payout ratio of 53% (implying that it keeps only 47% of its profits), meaning that it pays out most of its profits to shareholders as dividends, and as a result, the company has seen low earnings growth.
In addition, XP Power has been paying dividends over a period of at least ten years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is way more important to the management even if it comes at the cost of business growth. 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. Still, forecasts suggest that XP Power's future ROE will rise to 19% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.
Conclusion
In total, it does look like XP Power has some positive aspects to its business. The company has grown its earnings moderately as previously discussed. Still, the high ROE could have been even more beneficial to investors had the company been reinvesting more of its profits. As highlighted earlier, the current reinvestment rate appears to be quite low. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings are expected to accelerate. 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.
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