Is Saputo Inc.'s (TSE:SAP) Stock Price Struggling As A Result Of Its Mixed Financials?

With its stock down 3.5% over the past month, it is easy to disregard Saputo (TSE:SAP). It seems that the market might have completely ignored the positive aspects of the company's fundamentals and decided to weigh-in more on the negative aspects. Long-term fundamentals are usually what drive market outcomes, so it's worth paying close attention. In this article, we decided to focus on Saputo's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

Check out our latest analysis for Saputo

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

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 Saputo is:

9.2% = CA$599m ÷ CA$6.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each CA$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made CA$0.09 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With 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. 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 Saputo's Earnings Growth And 9.2% ROE

At first glance, Saputo's ROE doesn't look very promising. However, given that the company's ROE is similar to the average industry ROE of 9.0%, we may spare it some thought. Having said that, Saputo's net income growth over the past five years is more or less flat. Bear in mind, the company's ROE is not very high. Hence, this provides some context to the flat earnings growth seen by the company.

As a next step, we compared Saputo's net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 7.0% in the same period.

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. Has the market priced in the future outlook for SAP? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Saputo Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Despite having a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 34% (meaning the company retains66% of profits) in the last three-year period, Saputo's earnings growth was more or les flat. Therefore, there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.

In addition, Saputo 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.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by Saputo can be open to many interpretations. Even though it appears to be retaining most of its profits, given the low ROE, investors may not be benefitting from all that reinvestment after all. The low earnings growth suggests our theory correct. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. 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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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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