Is USS Co., Ltd.'s (TSE:4732) Latest Stock Performance Being Led By Its Strong Fundamentals?

USS' (TSE:4732) stock up by 7.1% over the past three months. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term financial health, we decided to study the company’s fundamentals to see if they could be influencing the market. In this article, we decided to focus on USS' ROE.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

See our latest analysis for USS

How Do You 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 USS is:

17% = JP¥35b ÷ JP¥207b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each ¥1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made ¥0.17 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of USS' Earnings Growth And 17% ROE

At first glance, USS seems to have a decent ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 9.5% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. Probably as a result of this, USS was able to see a decent growth of 16% over the last five years.

As a next step, we compared USS' net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 13%.

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. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. What is 4732 worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether 4732 is currently mispriced by the market.

Is USS Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 55% (or a retention ratio of 45%) for USS suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of its income to its shareholders.

Additionally, USS has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with USS' performance. Especially the high ROE, Which has contributed to the impressive growth seen in earnings. Despite the company reinvesting only a small portion of its profits, it still has managed to grow its earnings so that is appreciable. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. 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.