Somfy SA's (EPA:SO) Stock Has Shown A Decent Performance: Have Financials A Role To Play?

Somfy's (EPA:SO) stock is up by 7.2% over the past 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 Somfy's ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. 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 Somfy

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

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 Somfy is:

15% = €153m ÷ €1.0b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every €1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of €0.15.

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. 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.

Somfy's Earnings Growth And 15% ROE

To start with, Somfy's ROE looks acceptable. Especially when compared to the industry average of 12% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. Despite this, Somfy's five year net income growth was quite flat over the past five years. We reckon that there could be some other factors at play here that's limiting the company's growth. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

We then compared Somfy's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 5.9% in the same period, which is a bit concerning.

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). 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 Somfy's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Somfy Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Despite having a normal three-year median payout ratio of 28% (implying that the company keeps 72% of its income) over the last three years, Somfy has seen a negligible amount of growth in earnings as we saw above. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

Additionally, Somfy has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company's management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 30%. As a result, Somfy's ROE is not expected to change by much either, which we inferred from the analyst estimate of 15% for future ROE.

Summary

On the whole, we do feel that Somfy has some positive attributes. 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. That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. 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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