Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About Alten S.A. (EPA:ATE)?

With its stock down 6.6% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Alten (EPA:ATE). However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Specifically, we decided to study Alten's ROE in this article.

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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

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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 Alten is:

8.4% = €186m ÷ €2.2b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each €1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made €0.08 in profit.

Check out our latest analysis for Alten

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. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. 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.

Alten's Earnings Growth And 8.4% ROE

When you first look at it, Alten's ROE doesn't look that attractive. A quick further study shows that the company's ROE doesn't compare favorably to the industry average of 15% either. Alten was still able to see a decent net income growth of 15% over the past five years. So, there might be other aspects that are positively influencing the company's earnings growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Alten's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 12% in the same period, which is great to see.

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). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Has the market priced in the future outlook for ATE? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Alten Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Alten has a low three-year median payout ratio of 19%, meaning that the company retains the remaining 81% of its profits. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business.

Moreover, Alten is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 20% of its profits over the next three years. However, Alten's ROE is predicted to rise to 10% despite there being no anticipated change in its payout ratio.

Summary

Overall, we feel that Alten certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Despite its low rate of return, the fact that the company reinvests a very high portion of its profits into its business, no doubt contributed to its high earnings growth. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. 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.