Declining Stock and Solid Fundamentals: Is The Market Wrong About Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (NSE:BPCL)?

It is hard to get excited after looking at Bharat Petroleum's (NSE:BPCL) recent performance, when its stock has declined 16% over the past three months. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financial performance over the long term, which in this case looks quite promising. Specifically, we decided to study Bharat Petroleum's ROE in this article.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

Check out our latest analysis for Bharat Petroleum

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Bharat Petroleum is:

18% = ₹137b ÷ ₹771b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every ₹1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of ₹0.18.

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. 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. 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.

Bharat Petroleum's Earnings Growth And 18% ROE

At first glance, Bharat Petroleum seems to have a decent ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 14% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. Probably as a result of this, Bharat Petroleum 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.

We then performed a comparison between Bharat Petroleum's net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 27% in the same 5-year 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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is Bharat Petroleum fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is Bharat Petroleum Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Bharat Petroleum's three-year median payout ratio is a pretty moderate 35%, meaning the company retains 65% of its income. So it seems that Bharat Petroleum is reinvesting efficiently in a way that it sees impressive growth in its earnings (discussed above) and pays a dividend that's well covered.

Additionally, Bharat Petroleum has paid dividends over a period of at least ten 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 35% of its profits over the next three years. Accordingly, forecasts suggest that Bharat Petroleum's future ROE will be 15% which is again, similar to the current ROE.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that Bharat Petroleum's performance has been quite good. In particular, it's great to see that the company is investing heavily into its business and along with a high rate of return, that has resulted in a sizeable growth in its earnings. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. 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.