Is Sabre Insurance Group plc's (LON:SBRE) Latest Stock Performance A Reflection Of Its Financial Health?

Most readers would already be aware that Sabre Insurance Group's (LON:SBRE) stock increased significantly by 21% over the past three months. Given the company's impressive performance, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely as a company's financial health over the long-term usually dictates market outcomes. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Sabre Insurance Group'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 short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

See our latest analysis for Sabre Insurance Group

How Do You 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 Sabre Insurance Group is:

16% = UK£44m ÷ UK£272m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each £1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made £0.16 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. 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.

Sabre Insurance Group's Earnings Growth And 16% ROE

To begin with, Sabre Insurance Group seems to have a respectable ROE. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 12%. This certainly adds some context to Sabre Insurance Group's decent 9.5% net income growth seen over the past five years.

Next, on comparing Sabre Insurance Group's net income growth with the industry, we found that the company's reported growth is similar to the industry average growth rate of 10% 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. Has the market priced in the future outlook for SBRE? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Sabre Insurance Group Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

While Sabre Insurance Group has a three-year median payout ratio of 65% (which means it retains 35% 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.

Along with seeing a growth in earnings, Sabre Insurance Group only recently started paying dividends. Its quite possible that the company was looking to impress its shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 78% over the next three years. Despite the higher expected payout ratio, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with Sabre Insurance Group's performance. 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. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. 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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