Beijing Enlight Media Co., Ltd. (SZSE:300251) On An Uptrend: Could Fundamentals Be Driving The Stock?

Most readers would already know that Beijing Enlight Media's (SZSE:300251) stock increased by 4.5% over the past month. As most would know, long-term fundamentals have a strong correlation with market price movements, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. Specifically, we decided to study Beijing Enlight Media'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. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

Check out our latest analysis for Beijing Enlight Media

How Is ROE Calculated?

Return on equity 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 Beijing Enlight Media is:

8.0% = CN¥723m ÷ CN¥9.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every CN¥1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of CN¥0.08.

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. 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.

Beijing Enlight Media's Earnings Growth And 8.0% ROE

At first glance, Beijing Enlight Media's ROE doesn't look very promising. However, the fact that the company's ROE is higher than the average industry ROE of 5.6%, is definitely interesting. But then again, seeing that Beijing Enlight Media's net income shrunk at a rate of 18% in the past five years, makes us think again. Bear in mind, the company does have a slightly low ROE. It is just that the industry ROE is lower. Therefore, the decline in earnings could also be the result of this.

So, as a next step, we compared Beijing Enlight Media's performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 4.8% over the last few years.

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. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Beijing Enlight Media is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Beijing Enlight Media Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Looking at its LTM (or last twelve month) payout ratio of 28% (or a retention ratio of 72%) which is pretty normal, Beijing Enlight Media's declining earnings is rather baffling as one would expect to see a fair bit of growth when a company is retaining a good portion of its profits. So there could be some other explanations in that regard. For instance, the company's business may be deteriorating.

In addition, Beijing Enlight Media 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. Looking at the current analyst consensus data, we can see that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 36% over the next three years. Regardless, the future ROE for Beijing Enlight Media is speculated to rise to 11% despite the anticipated increase in the payout ratio. There could probably be other factors that could be driving the future growth in the ROE.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Beijing Enlight Media has some positive aspects to its business. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a moderate ROE and and a high reinvestment rate. We believe that there might be some outside factors that could be having a negative impact on the business. Having said that, looking at current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings growth rate is expected to see a huge improvement. 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. 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com