Are Robust Financials Driving The Recent Rally In ATOSS Software AG's (ETR:AOF) Stock?

Most readers would already be aware that ATOSS Software's (ETR:AOF) stock increased significantly by 17% over the past 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. In this article, we decided to focus on ATOSS Software's ROE.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Check out our latest analysis for ATOSS Software

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for ATOSS Software is:

71% = €16m ÷ €23m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every €1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of €0.71.

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.

ATOSS Software's Earnings Growth And 71% ROE

To begin with, ATOSS Software has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 14% which is quite remarkable. Probably as a result of this, ATOSS Software was able to see a decent net income growth of 15% over the last five years.

As a next step, we compared ATOSS Software's net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 8.4%.

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). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about ATOSS Software's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is ATOSS Software Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

ATOSS Software has a three-year median payout ratio of 50%, which implies that it retains the remaining 50% of its profits. This suggests that its dividend is well covered, and given the decent growth seen by the company, it looks like management is reinvesting its earnings efficiently.

Moreover, ATOSS Software is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to rise to 75% over the next three years. Therefore, the expected rise in the payout ratio explains why the company's ROE is expected to decline to 54% over the same period.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with ATOSS Software's performance. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business, and at a high rate of return. Unsurprisingly, this has led to an impressive earnings growth. On studying current analyst estimates, we found that analysts expect the company to continue its recent growth streak. 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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