With An ROE Of 22.14%, Has Sleep Country Canada Holdings Inc's (TSE:ZZZ) Management Done Well?

Sleep Country Canada Holdings Inc (TSX:ZZZ) outperformed the home furnishing retail industry on the basis of its ROE – producing a higher 22.14% relative to the peer average of 12.24% over the past 12 months. However, whether this above-industry ROE is actually impressive depends on if it can be maintained. Sustainability can be gauged by a company’s financial leverage – the more debt it has, the higher ROE is pumped up in the short term, at the expense of long term interest payment burden. Let me show you what I mean by this. See our latest analysis for Sleep Country Canada Holdings

Peeling the layers of ROE – trisecting a company’s profitability

Return on Equity (ROE) weighs Sleep Country Canada Holdings’s profit against the level of its shareholders’ equity. It essentially shows how much the company can generate in earnings given the amount of equity it has raised. Investors seeking to maximise their return in the Home Furnishing Retail industry may want to choose the highest returning stock. However, this can be deceiving as each company has varying costs of equity and debt levels, which could exaggeratedly push up ROE at the same time as accumulating high interest expense.

Returns are usually compared to costs to measure the efficiency of capital. Sleep Country Canada Holdings’s cost of equity is 8.75%. This means Sleep Country Canada Holdings returns enough to cover its own cost of equity, with a buffer of 13.39%. This sustainable practice implies that the company pays less for its capital than what it generates in return. ROE can be broken down into three different ratios: net profit margin, asset turnover, and financial leverage. This is called the Dupont Formula:

Basically, profit margin measures how much of revenue trickles down into earnings which illustrates how efficient the business is with its cost management. The other component, asset turnover, illustrates how much revenue Sleep Country Canada Holdings can make from its asset base. The most interesting ratio, and reflective of sustainability of its ROE, is financial leverage. We can assess whether Sleep Country Canada Holdings is fuelling ROE by excessively raising debt. Ideally, Sleep Country Canada Holdings should have a balanced capital structure, which we can check by looking at the historic debt-to-equity ratio of the company. The ratio currently stands at a sensible 40.41%, meaning Sleep Country Canada Holdings has not taken on excessive debt to drive its returns. The company is able to produce profit growth without a huge debt burden.

Next Steps:

ROE is a simple yet informative ratio, illustrating the various components that each measure the quality of the overall stock. Sleep Country Canada Holdings’s above-industry ROE is encouraging, and is also in excess of its cost of equity. Its high ROE is not likely to be driven by high debt. Therefore, investors may have more confidence in the sustainability of this level of returns going forward. Although ROE can be a useful metric, it is only a small part of diligent research.

For Sleep Country Canada Holdings, there are three important aspects you should further research:

1. Financial Health: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.
2. Valuation: What is Sleep Country Canada Holdings worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether Sleep Country Canada Holdings is currently mispriced by the market.
3. Other High-Growth Alternatives : Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of Sleep Country Canada Holdings? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large growth potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

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Simply Wall St analyst Simply Wall St and Simply Wall St have no position in any of the companies mentioned. This article 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.