DATAGROUP SE's (ETR:D6H) Fundamentals Look Pretty Strong: Could The Market Be Wrong About The Stock?

It is hard to get excited after looking at DATAGROUP's (ETR:D6H) recent performance, when its stock has declined 12% over the past month. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. Specifically, we decided to study DATAGROUP's ROE in this article.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

See our latest analysis for DATAGROUP

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 DATAGROUP is:

22% = €21m ÷ €94m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2021).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each €1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made €0.22 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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 all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.

DATAGROUP's Earnings Growth And 22% ROE

First thing first, we like that DATAGROUP has an impressive ROE. Secondly, even when compared to the industry average of 14% the company's ROE is quite impressive. Given the circumstances, we can't help but wonder why DATAGROUP saw little to no growth in the past five years. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven't been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering the company's growth. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital

As a next step, we compared DATAGROUP'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 17% 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). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is D6H fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.

Is DATAGROUP Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Despite having a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 39% (meaning the company retains61% of profits) in the last three-year period, DATAGROUP'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, DATAGROUP 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. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 39% of its profits over the next three years. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 18%.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like DATAGROUP has some positive aspects to its business. However, given the high ROE and high profit retention, we would expect the company to be delivering strong earnings growth, but that isn't the case here. This suggests that there might be some external threat to the business, that's hampering its growth. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts 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.