Is Polycab India Limited's (NSE:POLYCAB) Recent Performance Tethered To Its Attractive Financial Prospects?

Most readers would already know that Polycab India's (NSE:POLYCAB) stock increased by 3.4% over the past week. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term financial health, we decided to study the company’s fundamentals to see if they could be influencing the market. Specifically, we decided to study Polycab India's ROE in this article.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

See our latest analysis for Polycab India

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 Polycab India is:

21% = ₹18b ÷ ₹87b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every ₹1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of ₹0.21.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.

A Side By Side comparison of Polycab India's Earnings Growth And 21% ROE

To begin with, Polycab India seems to have a respectable ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 13% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. This probably laid the ground for Polycab India's significant 23% net income growth seen over the past five years. However, there could also be other causes behind 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.

As a next step, we compared Polycab India's net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 33% in the same period.

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. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. 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 Polycab India is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Polycab India Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Polycab India's ' three-year median payout ratio is on the lower side at 21% implying that it is retaining a higher percentage (79%) of its profits. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business as evidenced by the growth seen by the company.

Additionally, Polycab India has paid dividends over a period of six years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 23% of its profits over the next three years. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 20%.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with Polycab India's performance. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see a good amount of growth in its earnings. That being so, a study of the latest analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to see a slowdown in its future earnings growth. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

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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.