Is TORM plc's (CPH:TRMD A) Latest Stock Performance A Reflection Of Its Financial Health?

TORM's (CPH:TRMD A) stock is up by a considerable 16% over the past three months. 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 TORM'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. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

See our latest analysis for TORM

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 TORM is:

34% = US$704m ÷ US$2.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every DKK1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn DKK0.34 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. 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.

TORM's Earnings Growth And 34% ROE

First thing first, we like that TORM has an impressive ROE. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 16% which is quite remarkable. Under the circumstances, TORM's considerable five year net income growth of 52% was to be expected.

As a next step, we compared TORM'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 29%.

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). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. What is TRMD A worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether TRMD A is currently mispriced by the market.

Is TORM Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

TORM has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 70%, meaning the company only retains 30% of its income. This implies that the company has been able to achieve high earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.

Besides, TORM has been paying dividends over a period of eight years. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 94% over the next three years. Consequently, the higher expected payout ratio explains the decline in the company's expected ROE (to 21%) over the same period.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with TORM's performance. Especially the high ROE, Which has contributed to the impressive growth seen in earnings. Despite the company reinvesting only a small portion of its profits, it still has managed to grow its earnings so that is appreciable. With that said, on studying the latest analyst forecasts, we found that while the company has seen growth in its past earnings, analysts expect its future earnings to shrink. 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