Sakae Electronics Corporation's (TYO:7567) Stock is Soaring But Financials Seem Inconsistent: Will The Uptrend Continue?

Sakae Electronics (TYO:7567) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 20% over the last three months. However, we decided to pay attention to the company's fundamentals which don't appear to give a clear sign about the company's financial health. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Sakae Electronics' ROE today.

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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

View our latest analysis for Sakae Electronics

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

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 Sakae Electronics is:

3.0% = JP¥85m ÷ JP¥2.9b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each ¥1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made ¥0.03 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For 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.

Sakae Electronics' Earnings Growth And 3.0% ROE

At first glance, Sakae Electronics' ROE doesn't look very promising. Next, when compared to the average industry ROE of 5.9%, the company's ROE leaves us feeling even less enthusiastic. Therefore, it might not be wrong to say that the five year net income decline of 10% seen by Sakae Electronics was probably the result of it having a lower ROE. We believe that there also might be other aspects that are negatively influencing the company's earnings prospects. For instance, the company has a very high payout ratio, or is faced with competitive pressures.

However, when we compared Sakae Electronics' growth with the industry we found that while the company's earnings have been shrinking, the industry has seen an earnings growth of 7.8% in the same period. This is quite worrisome.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about Sakae Electronics''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Sakae Electronics Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Looking at its three-year median payout ratio of 34% (or a retention ratio of 66%) which is pretty normal, Sakae Electronics' declining earnings is rather baffling as one would expect to see a fair bit of growth when a company is retaining a good portion of its profits. It looks like there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.

Moreover, Sakae Electronics has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth.

Conclusion

On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by Sakae Electronics can be open to many interpretations. Even though it appears to be retaining most of its profits, given the low ROE, investors may not be benefitting from all that reinvestment after all. The low earnings growth suggests our theory correct. Wrapping up, we would proceed with caution with this company and one way of doing that would be to look at the risk profile of the business. You can see the 2 risks we have identified for Sakae Electronics by visiting our risks dashboard for free on our platform here.

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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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