Could The Market Be Wrong About NKT A/S (CPH:NKT) Given Its Attractive Financial Prospects?

It is hard to get excited after looking at NKT's (CPH:NKT) recent performance, when its stock has declined 26% over the past three months. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financial performance over the long term, which in this case looks quite promising. Specifically, we decided to study NKT'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. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

See our latest analysis for NKT

How To 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 NKT is:

11% = €211m ÷ €1.9b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every DKK1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated DKK0.11 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For 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. 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.

NKT's Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

At first glance, NKT seems to have a decent ROE. Even when compared to the industry average of 13% the company's ROE looks quite decent. This certainly adds some context to NKT's exceptional 77% net income growth seen over the past five years. We believe that there might also be other aspects that are positively influencing the company's earnings growth. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.

As a next step, we compared NKT'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 21%.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. If you're wondering about NKT's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is NKT Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

NKT doesn't pay any regular dividends currently which essentially means that it has been reinvesting all of its profits into the business. This definitely contributes to the high earnings growth number that we discussed above.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with NKT's performance. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. 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.