Do Its Financials Have Any Role To Play In Driving FNS TECH. Co., Ltd's (KOSDAQ:083500) Stock Up Recently?

FNS TECH's (KOSDAQ:083500) stock is up by a considerable 32% over the past month. 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 FNS TECH's ROE.

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.

Check out our latest analysis for FNS TECH

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 FNS TECH is:

14% = ₩11b ÷ ₩75b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. So, this means that for every ₩1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of ₩0.14.

What Has ROE Got To Do With 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.

FNS TECH's Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

To start with, FNS TECH's ROE looks acceptable. Especially when compared to the industry average of 5.8% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. Needless to say, we are quite surprised to see that FNS TECH's net income shrunk at a rate of 4.3% over the past five years. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven't been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering the company's growth. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.

So, as a next step, we compared FNS TECH's performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 10.0% over the last few years.

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. Is FNS TECH fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is FNS TECH Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

FNS TECH's low three-year median payout ratio of 14% (implying that it retains the remaining 86% of its profits) comes as a surprise when you pair it with the shrinking earnings. The low payout should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings and consequently, should see some growth. It looks like there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.

In addition, FNS TECH has been paying dividends over a period of four years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is preferred by the management even though earnings have been in decline.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like FNS TECH has some positive aspects to its business. However, given the high ROE and high profit retention, we would expect the company to be delivering strong earnings growth, but that isn't the case here. This suggests that there might be some external threat to the business, that's hampering its growth. While we won't completely dismiss the company, what we would do, is try to ascertain how risky the business is to make a more informed decision around the company. Our risks dashboard would have the 4 risks we have identified for FNS TECH.

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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.