Kemira Oyj's (HEL:KEMIRA) Stock's On An Uptrend: Are Strong Financials Guiding The Market?

Kemira Oyj's (HEL:KEMIRA) stock is up by a considerable 24% over the past three months. Given that the market rewards strong financials in the long-term, we wonder if that is the case in this instance. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Kemira Oyj'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. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

Check out our latest analysis for Kemira Oyj

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 Kemira Oyj is:

10% = €123m ÷ €1.2b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each €1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made €0.10 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Kemira Oyj's Earnings Growth And 10% ROE

To start with, Kemira Oyj's ROE looks acceptable. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 10%. This certainly adds some context to Kemira Oyj's moderate 10% net income growth seen over the past five years.

Next, on comparing Kemira Oyj's net income growth with the industry, we found that the company's reported growth is similar to the industry average growth rate of 8.7% in the same period.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. What is KEMIRA worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether KEMIRA is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Kemira Oyj Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

While Kemira Oyj has a three-year median payout ratio of 84% (which means it retains 16% of profits), the company has still seen a fair bit of earnings growth in the past, meaning that its high payout ratio hasn't hampered its ability to grow.

Additionally, Kemira Oyj has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 60% over the next three years. However, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much despite the lower expected payout ratio.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that Kemira Oyj's performance has been quite good. 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. That being so, a study of the latest analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to see a slowdown in its future earnings growth. 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. 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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