Could The Market Be Wrong About Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd (KLSE:DAYANG) Given Its Attractive Financial Prospects?

With its stock down 9.8% over the past week, it is easy to disregard Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd (KLSE:DAYANG). But if you pay close attention, you might gather that its strong financials could mean that the stock could potentially see an increase in value in the long-term, given how markets usually reward companies with good financial health. In this article, we decided to focus on Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

View our latest analysis for Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd

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 Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd is:

21% = RM439m ÷ RM2.0b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every MYR1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated MYR0.21 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd's Earnings Growth And 21% ROE

To start with, Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd's ROE looks acceptable. Even when compared to the industry average of 19% the company's ROE looks quite decent. This certainly adds some context to Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd's moderate 10% net income growth seen over the past five years.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 35% over the last few years, which is not something we like to see.

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. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. 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 Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd has a low three-year median payout ratio of 20%, meaning that the company retains the remaining 80% of its profits. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business.

Moreover, Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd 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. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 21% of its profits over the next three years. Still, forecasts suggest that Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd's future ROE will drop to 13% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.

Conclusion

On the whole, we feel that Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd's performance has been quite good. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business, and at a high rate of return. As a result, the decent growth in its earnings is not surprising. Having said that, on studying current analyst estimates, we were concerned to see that while the company has grown its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to shrink in the future. 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. 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.