Salama Cooperative Insurance Company (TADAWUL:8050) Is Going Strong But Fundamentals Appear To Be Mixed : Is There A Clear Direction For The Stock?

Salama Cooperative Insurance's (TADAWUL:8050) stock is up by a considerable 67% over the past three months. But the company's key financial indicators appear to be differing across the board and that makes us question whether or not the company's current share price momentum can be maintained. In this article, we decided to focus on Salama Cooperative Insurance'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 short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

Check out our latest analysis for Salama Cooperative Insurance

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 Salama Cooperative Insurance is:

6.7% = ر.س14m ÷ ر.س207m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every SAR1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated SAR0.07 in profit.

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. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Salama Cooperative Insurance's Earnings Growth And 6.7% ROE

It is hard to argue that Salama Cooperative Insurance's ROE is much good in and of itself. Even when compared to the industry average of 9.3%, the ROE figure is pretty disappointing. Therefore, it might not be wrong to say that the five year net income decline of 36% seen by Salama Cooperative Insurance was possibly a result of it having a lower ROE. We reckon that there could also be other factors at play here. Such as - low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

However, when we compared Salama Cooperative Insurance's growth with the industry we found that while the company's earnings have been shrinking, the industry has seen an earnings growth of 0.3% in the same period. This is quite worrisome.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. 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 Salama Cooperative Insurance is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Salama Cooperative Insurance Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Summary

In total, we're a bit ambivalent about Salama Cooperative Insurance's performance. While the company does have a high rate of reinvestment, the low ROE means that all that reinvestment is not reaping any benefit to its investors, and moreover, its having a negative impact on the earnings growth. 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. Our risks dashboard would have the 2 risks we have identified for Salama Cooperative Insurance.

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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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