Trainers’ House Oyj's (HEL:TRH1V) Stock Is Going Strong: Have Financials A Role To Play?

Trainers’ House Oyj's (HEL:TRH1V) stock is up by a considerable 21% over the past month. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely to see if they had a hand to play in the recent price move. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Trainers’ House Oyj's ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

View our latest analysis for Trainers’ House Oyj

How Is ROE Calculated?

The formula for return on equity is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Trainers’ House Oyj is:

24% = €1.5m ÷ €6.3m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2021).

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 €0.24.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

A Side By Side comparison of Trainers’ House Oyj's Earnings Growth And 24% ROE

First thing first, we like that Trainers’ House Oyj has an impressive ROE. Secondly, even when compared to the industry average of 12% the company's ROE is quite impressive. For this reason, Trainers’ House Oyj's five year net income decline of 51% raises the question as to why the high ROE didn't translate into earnings growth. 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.

So, as a next step, we compared Trainers’ House Oyj's performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 13% in the same period.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. 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. If you're wondering about Trainers’ House Oyj's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Trainers’ House Oyj Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Despite having a normal LTM (or last twelve month) payout ratio of 27% (where it is retaining 73% of its profits), Trainers’ House Oyj has seen a decline in earnings as we saw above. So there could be some other explanations in that regard. For instance, the company's business may be deteriorating.

In addition, Trainers’ House Oyj only recently started paying a dividend so the management probably decided the shareholders prefer dividends even though earnings have been shrinking.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Trainers’ House Oyj has some positive aspects to its business. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a high ROE and and a high reinvestment rate. We believe that there might be some outside factors that could be having a negative impact on the business. While we won't completely dismiss the company, what we would do, is try to ascertain how risky the business is to make a more informed decision around the company. You can see the 3 risks we have identified for Trainers’ House Oyj by visiting our risks dashboard for free on our platform here.

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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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