Is Suny Cellular Communication Ltd's (TLV:SNCM) Recent Price Movement Underpinned By Its Weak Fundamentals?

It is hard to get excited after looking at Suny Cellular Communication's (TLV:SNCM) recent performance, when its stock has declined 8.8% over the past three months. 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. Fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes so it makes sense to study the company's financials. Specifically, we decided to study Suny Cellular Communication's ROE in this article.

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

See our latest analysis for Suny Cellular Communication

How Is ROE Calculated?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Suny Cellular Communication is:

8.4% = ₪22m ÷ ₪263m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 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 ₪0.08 in profit.

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. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. 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.

Suny Cellular Communication's Earnings Growth And 8.4% ROE

At first glance, Suny Cellular Communication's ROE doesn't look very promising. Yet, a closer study shows that the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 9.3%. But then again, Suny Cellular Communication's five year net income shrunk at a rate of 48%. Remember, the company's ROE is a bit low to begin with. Therefore, the decline in earnings could also be the result of this.

So, as a next step, we compared Suny Cellular Communication's performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 14% in the same period.

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. If you're wondering about Suny Cellular Communication's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Suny Cellular Communication Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Suny Cellular Communication doesn't pay any dividend, meaning that potentially all of its profits are being reinvested in the business, which doesn't explain why the company's earnings have shrunk if it is retaining all of its profits. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

Conclusion

Overall, we have mixed feelings about Suny Cellular Communication. Even though it appears to be retaining most of its profits, given the low ROE, investors may not be benefitting from all that reinvestment after all. The low earnings growth suggests our theory correct. Wrapping up, we would proceed with caution with this company and one way of doing that would be to look at the risk profile of the business. To know the 3 risks we have identified for Suny Cellular Communication visit our risks dashboard for free.

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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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