S-1 Corporation's (KRX:012750) Stock On An Uptrend: Could Fundamentals Be Driving The Momentum?

S-1's (KRX:012750) stock is up by a considerable 15% over the past three months. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely to see if they had a hand to play in the recent price move. In this article, we decided to focus on S-1's ROE.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

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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 S-1 is:

11% = ₩178b ÷ ₩1.6t (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2025).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every ₩1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn ₩0.11 in profit.

Check out our latest analysis for S-1

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

S-1's Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

To start with, S-1's ROE looks acceptable. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 9.8%. This certainly adds some context to S-1's moderate 6.4% net income growth seen over the past five years.

We then compared S-1's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 8.7% in the same 5-year period, which is a bit concerning.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). 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 S-1's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is S-1 Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

S-1 has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 51%, meaning that it is left with only 49% to reinvest into its business. This implies that the company has been able to achieve decent earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.

Additionally, S-1 has paid dividends over a period of six years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 55% of its profits over the next three years. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 11%.

Conclusion

On the whole, we do feel that S-1 has some positive attributes. Its earnings have grown respectably as we saw earlier, which was likely due to the company reinvesting its earnings at a pretty high rate of return. However, given the high ROE, we do think that the company is reinvesting a small portion of its profits. This could likely be preventing the company from growing to its full extent. 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.