Emami Limited's (NSE:EMAMILTD) Stock Has Been Sliding But Fundamentals Look Strong: Is The Market Wrong?

With its stock down 13% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Emami (NSE:EMAMILTD). But if you pay close attention, you might gather that its strong financials could mean that the stock could potentially see an increase in value in the long-term, given how markets usually reward companies with good financial health. In this article, we decided to focus on Emami's ROE.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

View our latest analysis for Emami

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

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 Emami is:

30% = ₹7.2b ÷ ₹24b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each ₹1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made ₹0.30 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.

Emami's Earnings Growth And 30% ROE

To begin with, Emami has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 13% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. Under the circumstances, Emami's considerable five year net income growth of 22% was to be expected.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Emami's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 7.1% in the same period, which is great to see.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. If you're wondering about Emami's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Emami Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 53% (implying that it keeps only 47% of profits) for Emami suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of the earnings to its shareholders.

Besides, Emami has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 53% 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 29%.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with Emami's performance. We are particularly impressed by the considerable earnings growth posted by the company, which was likely backed by its high ROE. While the company is paying out most of its earnings as dividends, it has been able to grow its earnings in spite of it, so that's probably a good sign. 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. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

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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.