Nederman Holding AB (publ)'s (STO:NMAN) Stock Has Seen Strong Momentum: Does That Call For Deeper Study Of Its Financial Prospects?

Nederman Holding (STO:NMAN) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 9.4% over the last week. As most would know, fundamentals are what usually guide market price movements over the long-term, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Nederman Holding's ROE today.

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 simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

View our latest analysis for Nederman Holding

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 Nederman Holding is:

17% = kr276m ÷ kr1.6b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2021).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that for every SEK1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated SEK0.17 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. 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.

Nederman Holding's Earnings Growth And 17% ROE

At first glance, Nederman Holding seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 16%. Despite this, Nederman Holding's five year net income growth was quite flat 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.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Nederman Holding's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 14% in the same period, which is not something we like to see.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about Nederman Holding's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Nederman Holding Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Despite having a normal three-year median payout ratio of 33% (implying that the company keeps 67% of its income) over the last three years, Nederman Holding has seen a negligible amount of growth in earnings as we saw above. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

In addition, Nederman Holding has been paying dividends over a period of at least ten years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is way more important to the management even if it comes at the cost of business growth.

Summary

In total, it does look like Nederman Holding has some positive aspects to its business. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a high ROE and and a high reinvestment rate. We believe that there might be some outside factors that could be having a negative impact on the business. So far, we've only made a quick discussion around the company's earnings growth. You can do your own research on Nederman Holding and see how it has performed in the past by looking at this FREE detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flows.

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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.