Chembond Chemicals Limited (NSE:CHEMBOND) Stock Is Going Strong But Fundamentals Look Uncertain: What Lies Ahead ?

Chembond Chemicals (NSE:CHEMBOND) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 27% over the last three months. However, we wonder if the company's inconsistent financials would have any adverse impact on the current share price momentum. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Chembond Chemicals' ROE today.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Chembond Chemicals

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 Chembond Chemicals is:

1.7% = ₹49m ÷ ₹2.8b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

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 ₹0.02.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

Chembond Chemicals' Earnings Growth And 1.7% ROE

It is hard to argue that Chembond Chemicals' ROE is much good in and of itself. Even compared to the average industry ROE of 12%, the company's ROE is quite dismal. For this reason, Chembond Chemicals' five year net income decline of 63% is not surprising given its lower ROE. However, there could also be other factors causing the earnings to decline. Such as - low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

That being said, we compared Chembond Chemicals' performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 15% 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). 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 Chembond Chemicals''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Chembond Chemicals Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Chembond Chemicals' low three-year median payout ratio of 13% (implying that it retains the remaining 87% of its profits) comes as a surprise when you pair it with the shrinking earnings. This typically shouldn't be the case when a company is retaining most of its earnings. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For instance, the business has faced some headwinds.

In addition, Chembond Chemicals 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.

Summary

In total, we're a bit ambivalent about Chembond Chemicals' performance. While the company does have a high rate of profit retention, its low rate of return is probably hampering its earnings growth. 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. Our risks dashboard would have the 4 risks we have identified for Chembond Chemicals.

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