Tecan Group Ltd.'s (VTX:TECN) Stock Is Going Strong: Is the Market Following Fundamentals?

Tecan Group (VTX:TECN) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 16% over the last month. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. Specifically, we decided to study Tecan Group's ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

View our latest analysis for Tecan Group

How Is ROE Calculated?

The formula for ROE is:

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

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

14% = CHF104m ÷ CHF734m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every CHF1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn CHF0.14 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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 everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

Tecan Group's Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

To begin with, Tecan Group seems to have a respectable ROE. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 16%. This probably goes some way in explaining Tecan Group's moderate 11% growth over the past five years amongst other factors.

We then compared Tecan Group's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 19% in the same period, which is a bit concerning.

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. If you're wondering about Tecan Group's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Tecan Group Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

With a three-year median payout ratio of 35% (implying that the company retains 65% of its profits), it seems that Tecan Group is reinvesting efficiently in a way that it sees respectable amount growth in its earnings and pays a dividend that's well covered.

Additionally, Tecan Group has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 27% over the next three years. However, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much despite the lower expected payout ratio.

Summary

In total, we are pretty happy with Tecan Group's performance. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business, and at a high rate of return. As a result, the decent growth in its earnings is not surprising. On studying current analyst estimates, we found that analysts expect the company to continue its recent growth streak. 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. 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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