Is The Market Rewarding Ipca Laboratories Limited (NSE:IPCALAB) With A Negative Sentiment As A Result Of Its Mixed Fundamentals?

It is hard to get excited after looking at Ipca Laboratories' (NSE:IPCALAB) recent performance, when its stock has declined 4.8% over the past week. We, however decided to study the company's financials to determine if they have got anything to do with the price decline. Stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financial performance over the long term, and therefore we decided to pay more attention to the company's financial performance. Specifically, we decided to study Ipca Laboratories' ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

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How To 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 Ipca Laboratories is:

9.8% = ₹8.2b ÷ ₹84b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2025).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each ₹1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made ₹0.10 in profit.

View our latest analysis for Ipca Laboratories

What Has ROE Got To Do With 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Ipca Laboratories' Earnings Growth And 9.8% ROE

On the face of it, Ipca Laboratories' ROE is not much to talk about. Yet, a closer study shows that the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 12%. But then again, Ipca Laboratories' five year net income shrunk at a rate of 12%. Remember, the company's ROE is a bit low to begin with. So that's what might be causing earnings growth to shrink.

So, as a next step, we compared Ipca Laboratories' 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 12% over the last few years.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. If you're wondering about Ipca Laboratories''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Ipca Laboratories Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

Ipca Laboratories' low three-year median payout ratio of 15% (implying that it retains the remaining 85% of its profits) comes as a surprise when you pair it with the shrinking earnings. The low payout should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings and consequently, should see some growth. 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, Ipca Laboratories 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. Existing analyst estimates suggest that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 9.9% over the next three years. Accordingly, the expected drop in the payout ratio explains the expected increase in the company's ROE to 15%, over the same period.

Conclusion

On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by Ipca Laboratories can be open to many interpretations. While the company does have a high rate of reinvestment, the low ROE means that all that reinvestment is not reaping any benefit to its investors, and moreover, its having a negative impact on the earnings growth. Having said that, looking at current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings growth rate is expected to see a huge improvement. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page 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.