MTR Corporation Limited's (HKG:66) Stock Has Shown A Decent Performance: Have Financials A Role To Play?

MTR's (HKG:66) stock up by 8.1% over the past three months. As most would know, long-term fundamentals have a strong correlation with market price movements, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. Particularly, we will be paying attention to MTR'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. 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 MTR is:

8.6% = HK$16b ÷ HK$186b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every HK$1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn HK$0.09 in profit.

View our latest analysis for MTR

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. 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.

MTR's Earnings Growth And 8.6% ROE

At first glance, MTR's ROE doesn't look very promising. However, its ROE is similar to the industry average of 7.9%, so we won't completely dismiss the company. Looking at MTR's exceptional 22% five-year net income growth in particular, we are definitely impressed. Given the slightly low ROE, it is likely that there could be some other aspects that are driving this growth. For example, it is possible that the company's management has made some good strategic decisions, or that the company has a low payout ratio.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that MTR's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 0.5% in the same period, which is great to see.

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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is MTR fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is MTR Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

MTR has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 83%, meaning the company only retains 17% of its income. This implies that the company has been able to achieve high earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.

Moreover, MTR 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. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 69%. Regardless, MTR's ROE is speculated to decline to 5.9% despite there being no anticipated change in its payout ratio.

Conclusion

On the whole, we do feel that MTR has some positive attributes. While no doubt its earnings growth is pretty substantial, we do feel that the reinvestment rate is pretty low, meaning, the earnings growth number could have been significantly higher had the company been retaining more of its profits. Having said that, on studying current analyst estimates, we were concerned to see that while the company has grown its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to shrink in the future. 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.