Is Stella International Holdings Limited's (HKG:1836) Stock's Recent Performance Being Led By Its Attractive Financial Prospects?

Stella International Holdings (HKG:1836) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 5.6% over the last week. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. In this article, we decided to focus on Stella International Holdings' ROE.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

Check out our latest analysis for Stella International Holdings

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 Stella International Holdings is:

16% = US$177m ÷ US$1.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. That means that for every HK$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated HK$0.16 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

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

Stella International Holdings' Earnings Growth And 16% ROE

To begin with, Stella International Holdings seems to have a respectable ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 11% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. Probably as a result of this, Stella International Holdings was able to see an impressive net income growth of 23% over the last five years. We believe that there might also 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.

As a next step, we compared Stella International Holdings' net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 15%.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Stella International Holdings is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Stella International Holdings Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

Stella International Holdings' significant three-year median payout ratio of 76% (where it is retaining only 24% of its income) suggests that the company has been able to achieve a high growth in earnings despite returning most of its income to shareholders.

Moreover, Stella International Holdings 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. Based on the latest analysts' estimates, we found that the company's future payout ratio over the next three years is expected to hold steady at 67%. As a result, Stella International Holdings' ROE is not expected to change by much either, which we inferred from the analyst estimate of 16% for future ROE.

Summary

In total, we are pretty happy with Stella International Holdings' performance. We are particularly impressed by the considerable earnings growth posted by the company, which was likely backed by its high ROE. While the company is paying out most of its earnings as dividends, it has been able to grow its earnings in spite of it, so that's probably a good sign. 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. 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.