Is TT Electronics plc's (LON:TTG) Stock Price Struggling As A Result Of Its Mixed Financials?

TT Electronics (LON:TTG) has had a rough week with its share price down 2.9%. It seems that the market might have completely ignored the positive aspects of the company's fundamentals and decided to weigh-in more on the negative aspects. Long-term fundamentals are usually what drive market outcomes, so it's worth paying close attention. Particularly, we will be paying attention to TT Electronics' ROE today.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

See our latest analysis for TT Electronics

How Do You 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 TT Electronics is:

1.5% = UK£4.2m ÷ UK£285m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that for every £1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated £0.01 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of TT Electronics' Earnings Growth And 1.5% ROE

As you can see, TT Electronics' ROE looks pretty weak. Not just that, even compared to the industry average of 9.8%, the company's ROE is entirely unremarkable. TT Electronics was still able to see a decent net income growth of 10% over the past five years. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.

As a next step, we compared TT Electronics' net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 15% in the same period.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. What is TTG worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether TTG is currently mispriced by the market.

Is TT Electronics Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

While the company did pay out a portion of its dividend in the past, it currently doesn't pay a dividend. We infer that the company has been reinvesting all of its profits to grow its business.

Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 36% over the next three years. As a result, the expected drop in TT Electronics' payout ratio explains the anticipated rise in the company's future ROE to 9.3%, over the same period.

Conclusion

Overall, we have mixed feelings about TT Electronics. Although the company has shown a fair bit of growth in earnings, the reinvestment rate is low. Meaning, the earnings growth number could have been significantly higher had the company been retaining more of its profits and reinvesting that at a higher rate of return. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. 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. 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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