Is Santec Corporation's (TYO:6777) Recent Performance Tethered To Its Attractive Financial Prospects?

Santec's (TYO:6777) stock up by 8.5% 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. Specifically, we decided to study Santec's ROE in this article.

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. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

See our latest analysis for Santec

How Is ROE Calculated?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Santec is:

12% = JP¥1.2b ÷ JP¥9.9b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

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 ¥0.12 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. 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.

Santec's Earnings Growth And 12% ROE

To begin with, Santec seems to have a respectable ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 5.8% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. This probably laid the ground for Santec's moderate 15% net income growth seen over the past five years.

We then compared Santec's net income growth with the industry and we're pleased to see that the company's growth figure is higher when compared with the industry which has a growth rate of 8.3% in the same period.

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. 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 Santec's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Santec Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Santec has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 28% (or a retention ratio of 72%) and a respectable amount of growth in earnings as we saw above, meaning that the company has been making efficient use of its profits.

Moreover, Santec is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years.

Conclusion

On the whole, we feel that Santec's performance has been quite good. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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