Olympus Corporation's (TSE:7733) Stock Has Seen Strong Momentum: Does That Call For Deeper Study Of Its Financial Prospects?

Olympus (TSE:7733) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 18% over the last month. We wonder if and what role the company's financials play in that price change as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Olympus' ROE today.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

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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 Olympus is:

13% = JP¥96b ÷ JP¥735b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each ¥1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made ¥0.13 in profit.

Check out our latest analysis for Olympus

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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 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.

Olympus' Earnings Growth And 13% ROE

At first glance, Olympus seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 8.9%. Despite this, Olympus' five year net income growth was quite low averaging at only 4.9%. 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. We reckon that a low growth, when returns are quite high could be the result of certain circumstances like low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

As a next step, we compared Olympus' net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 6.2% in the same period.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Has the market priced in the future outlook for 7733? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Olympus Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Olympus' low three-year median payout ratio of 16% (or a retention ratio of 84%) should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings to fuel its growth. However, the low earnings growth number doesn't reflect this fact. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

In addition, Olympus 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.

Conclusion

Overall, we feel that Olympus certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a high ROE and and a high reinvestment rate. We believe that there might be some outside factors that could be having a negative impact on the business. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. 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.