Do Its Financials Have Any Role To Play In Driving Monadelphous Group Limited's (ASX:MND) Stock Up Recently?

Monadelphous Group (ASX:MND) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 18% over the last month. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely to see if they had a hand to play in the recent price move. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Monadelphous Group's ROE today.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

See our latest analysis for Monadelphous Group

How Is ROE Calculated?

ROE 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 Monadelphous Group is:

10% = AU$41m ÷ AU$400m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every A$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of A$0.10.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Monadelphous Group's Earnings Growth And 10% ROE

To start with, Monadelphous Group's ROE looks acceptable. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 11%. For this reason, Monadelphous Group's five year net income decline of 12% raises the question as to why the decent ROE didn't translate into growth. So, there might be some other aspects that could explain this. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

That being said, we compared Monadelphous Group's performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 20% in the same period.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Has the market priced in the future outlook for MND? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Monadelphous Group Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

With a high three-year median payout ratio of 88% (implying that 12% of the profits are retained), most of Monadelphous Group's profits are being paid to shareholders, which explains the company's shrinking earnings. The business is only left with a small pool of capital to reinvest - A vicious cycle that doesn't benefit the company in the long-run.

Additionally, Monadelphous Group has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company's management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 82%. Still, forecasts suggest that Monadelphous Group's future ROE will rise to 21% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.

Conclusion

Overall, we feel that Monadelphous Group 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. Bear in mind, the company reinvests a small portion of its profits, which means that investors aren't reaping the benefits of the high rate of return. With that said, we studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that while the company has shrunk its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to grow in the future. 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.

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