Are Robust Financials Driving The Recent Rally In Samsung C&T Corporation's (KRX:028260) Stock?

Samsung C&T's (KRX:028260) stock is up by a considerable 44% over the past three months. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. Specifically, we decided to study Samsung C&T's ROE in this article.

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. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

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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 Samsung C&T is:

7.5% = ₩2.9t ÷ ₩38t (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2025).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each ₩1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made ₩0.08 in profit.

Check out our latest analysis for Samsung C&T

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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 everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

Samsung C&T's Earnings Growth And 7.5% ROE

At first glance, Samsung C&T's ROE doesn't look very promising. However, the fact that the company's ROE is higher than the average industry ROE of 6.3%, is definitely interesting. Consequently, this likely laid the ground for the decent growth of 15% seen over the past five years by Samsung C&T. That being said, the company does have a slightly low ROE to begin with, just that it is higher than the industry average. Hence there might be some other aspects that are causing earnings to grow. Such as- high earnings retention or the company belonging to a high growth industry.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Samsung C&T's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 11% in the same period, which is great to see.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Samsung C&T is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Samsung C&T Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Samsung C&T has a low three-year median payout ratio of 19%, meaning that the company retains the remaining 81% of its profits. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business.

Moreover, Samsung C&T is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of nine years of paying a dividend. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 19%. As a result, Samsung C&T's ROE is not expected to change by much either, which we inferred from the analyst estimate of 7.9% for future ROE.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with Samsung C&T's performance. In particular, it's great to see that the company has seen significant growth in its earnings backed by a respectable ROE and a high reinvestment rate. That being so, a study of the latest analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to see a slowdown in its future earnings growth. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

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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.