Should You Expect Honeywell Automation India Limited (NSE:HONAUT) To Continue Delivering An ROE Of 18.00%?

Honeywell Automation India Limited (NSEI:HONAUT) delivered an ROE of 18.00% over the past 12 months, which is an impressive feat relative to its industry average of 10.42% during the same period. But what is more interesting is whether HONAUT can sustain this above-average ratio. A measure of sustainable returns is HONAUT’s financial leverage. If HONAUT borrows debt to invest in its business, its profits will be higher. But ROE does not capture any debt, so we only see high profits and low equity, which is great on the surface. But today let’s take a deeper dive below this surface. See our latest analysis for Honeywell Automation India

Peeling the layers of ROE – trisecting a company’s profitability

Firstly, Return on Equity, or ROE, is simply the percentage of last years’ earning against the book value of shareholders’ equity. It essentially shows how much the company can generate in earnings given the amount of equity it has raised. Investors seeking to maximise their return in the Electronic Equipment and Instruments industry may want to choose the highest returning stock. However, this can be deceiving as each company has varying costs of equity and debt levels, which could exaggeratedly push up ROE at the same time as accumulating high interest expense.

ROE is assessed against cost of equity, which is measured using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) – but let’s not dive into the details of that today. For now, let’s just look at the cost of equity number for Honeywell Automation India, which is 13.40%. Since Honeywell Automation India’s return covers its cost in excess of 4.60%, its use of equity capital is efficient and likely to be sustainable. Simply put, Honeywell Automation India pays less for its capital than what it generates in return. ROE can be broken down into three different ratios: net profit margin, asset turnover, and financial leverage. This is called the Dupont Formula:

Essentially, profit margin shows how much money the company makes after paying for all its expenses. Asset turnover shows how much revenue Honeywell Automation India can generate with its current asset base. And finally, financial leverage is simply how much of assets are funded by equity, which exhibits how sustainable the company’s capital structure is. ROE can be inflated by disproportionately high levels of debt. This is also unsustainable due to the high interest cost that the company will also incur. Thus, we should look at Honeywell Automation India’s debt-to-equity ratio to examine sustainability of its returns. Currently, Honeywell Automation India has no debt which means its returns are driven purely by equity capital. Therefore, the level of financial leverage has no impact on ROE, and the ratio is a representative measure of the efficiency of all its capital employed firm-wide.

Next Steps:

ROE is one of many ratios which meaningfully dissects financial statements, which illustrates the quality of a company. Honeywell Automation India’s above-industry ROE is encouraging, and is also in excess of its cost of equity. Its high ROE is not likely to be driven by high debt. Therefore, investors may have more confidence in the sustainability of this level of returns going forward. Although ROE can be a useful metric, it is only a small part of diligent research.

For Honeywell Automation India, I've put together three key factors you should further research:

1. Financial Health: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.

2. Valuation: What is Honeywell Automation India worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether Honeywell Automation India is currently mispriced by the market.

3. Other High-Growth Alternatives : Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of Honeywell Automation India? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large growth potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

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