Advertisement

Has PWR Holdings Limited's (ASX:PWH) Impressive Stock Performance Got Anything to Do With Its Fundamentals?

Most readers would already be aware that PWR Holdings' (ASX:PWH) stock increased significantly by 18% over the past month. We wonder if and what role the company's financials play in that price change as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. In this article, we decided to focus on PWR Holdings' ROE.

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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Check out our latest analysis for PWR Holdings

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 PWR Holdings is:

27% = AU$18m ÷ AU$66m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each A$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made A$0.27 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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.

A Side By Side comparison of PWR Holdings' Earnings Growth And 27% ROE

Firstly, we acknowledge that PWR Holdings has a significantly high ROE. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 17% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. This likely paved the way for the modest 14% net income growth seen by PWR Holdings over the past five years. growth

As a next step, we compared PWR Holdings' net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 27% in the same period.

past-earnings-growth
past-earnings-growth

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. 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 PWR Holdings is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is PWR Holdings Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 53% (or a retention ratio of 47%) for PWR Holdings suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of its income to its shareholders.

Additionally, PWR Holdings has paid dividends over a period of six years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 55%. As a result, PWR Holdings' ROE is not expected to change by much either, which we inferred from the analyst estimate of 28% for future ROE.

Conclusion

On the whole, we do feel that PWR Holdings has some positive attributes. 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. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

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.

Join A Paid User Research Session
You’ll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here