Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About Dabur India Limited (NSE:DABUR)?

Dabur India (NSE:DABUR) has had a rough month with its share price down 2.3%. However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. In this article, we decided to focus on Dabur India's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

View our latest analysis for Dabur India

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 Dabur India is:

22% = ₹16b ÷ ₹72b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every ₹1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn ₹0.22 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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.

Dabur India's Earnings Growth And 22% ROE

At first glance, Dabur India seems to have a decent ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 18% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. Yet, Dabur India has posted measly growth of 4.9% over the past five years. This is generally not the case as when a company has a high rate of return it should usually also have a high earnings growth rate. A few likely reasons why this could happen is that the company could have a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.

We then compared Dabur India's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 10% in the same period, which is a bit concerning.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. If you're wondering about Dabur India's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Dabur India Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

While Dabur India has a decent three-year median payout ratio of 34% (or a retention ratio of 66%), it has seen very little growth in earnings. Therefore, there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.

In addition, Dabur India has been paying dividends over a period of at least ten years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is way more important to the management even if it comes at the cost of business growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to rise to 43% over the next three years. Regardless, the ROE is not expected to change much for the company despite the higher expected payout ratio.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Dabur India has some positive aspects to its business. However, given the high ROE and high profit retention, we would expect the company to be delivering strong earnings growth, but that isn't the case here. This suggests that there might be some external threat to the business, that's hampering its growth. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. 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. 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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