Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About IVE Group Limited (ASX:IGL)?

IVE Group (ASX:IGL) has had a rough week with its share price down 11%. 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 IVE Group's ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

View our latest analysis for IVE Group

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for return on equity is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for IVE Group is:

14% = AU$25m ÷ AU$177m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2021).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every A$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of A$0.14.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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. 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.

IVE Group's Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

To begin with, IVE Group seems to have a respectable ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 9.4% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. For this reason, IVE Group's five year net income decline of 16% raises the question as to why the high ROE didn't translate into earnings growth. Therefore, there might be some other aspects that could explain this. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

However, when we compared IVE Group's growth with the industry we found that while the company's earnings have been shrinking, the industry has seen an earnings growth of 3.7% in the same period. This is quite worrisome.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. If you're wondering about IVE Group's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is IVE Group Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

With a high three-year median payout ratio of 81% (implying that 19% of the profits are retained), most of IVE Group's profits are being paid to shareholders, which explains the company's shrinking earnings. With only very little left to reinvest into the business, growth in earnings is far from likely.

Moreover, IVE Group has been paying dividends for five years, which is a considerable amount of time, suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer consistent dividends even though earnings have been shrinking. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 64% over the next three years. As a result, the expected drop in IVE Group's payout ratio explains the anticipated rise in the company's future ROE to 17%, over the same period.

Summary

On the whole, we do feel that IVE Group has some positive attributes. However, while the company does have a high ROE, its earnings growth number is quite disappointing. This can be blamed on the fact that it reinvests only a small portion of its profits and pays out the rest as dividends. Having said that, looking at current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings growth rate is expected to see a huge improvement. 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.

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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.