Do Its Financials Have Any Role To Play In Driving Brødrene Hartmann A/S' (CPH:HART) Stock Up Recently?

Brødrene Hartmann (CPH:HART) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 35% over the last three months. We wonder if and what role the company's financials play in that price change as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Brødrene Hartmann's ROE today.

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. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

Check out our latest analysis for Brødrene Hartmann

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

ROE 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 Brødrene Hartmann is:

22% = ø188m ÷ ø872m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2020).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every DKK1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of DKK0.22.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learnt 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 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Brødrene Hartmann's Earnings Growth And 22% ROE

To begin with, Brødrene Hartmann has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 9.8% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. Despite this, Brødrene Hartmann's five year net income growth was quite flat over the past five years. So, there could be some other aspects that could potentially be preventing the company from growing. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.

As a next step, we compared Brødrene Hartmann's net income growth with the industry and discovered that the industry saw an average growth of 7.9% in the same period.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. Has the market priced in the future outlook for HART? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report

Is Brødrene Hartmann Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Brødrene Hartmann has a high three-year median payout ratio of 53% (or a retention ratio of 47%), meaning that the company is paying most of its profits as dividends to its shareholders. This does go some way in explaining why there's been no growth in its earnings.

Conclusion

Overall, we feel that Brødrene Hartmann certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Yet, the low earnings growth is a bit concerning, especially given that the company has a high rate of return. Investors could have benefitted from the high ROE, had the company been reinvesting more of its earnings. As discussed earlier, the company is retaining a small portion of its profits. Until now, we have only just grazed the surface of the company's past performance by looking at the company's fundamentals. So it may be worth checking this free detailed graph of Brødrene Hartmann's past earnings, as well as revenue and cash flows to get a deeper insight into the company's performance.

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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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