Do Its Financials Have Any Role To Play In Driving Alcadon Group AB (publ)'s (STO:ALCA) Stock Up Recently?

Alcadon Group's (STO:ALCA) stock is up by a considerable 38% over the past three months. We wonder if and what role the company's financials play in that price change as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. Specifically, we decided to study Alcadon Group's ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

View our latest analysis for Alcadon Group

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 Alcadon Group is:

11% = kr25m ÷ kr223m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each SEK1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made SEK0.11 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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.

Alcadon Group's Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

At first glance, Alcadon Group seems to have a decent ROE. Yet, the fact that the company's ROE is lower than the industry average of 15% does temper our expectations. Additionally, the low net income growth of 2.9% seen by Alcadon Group over the past five years doesn't paint a very bright picture. Bear in mind, the company does have a respectable level of ROE. It is just that the industry ROE is higher. Therefore, the low earnings growth could be the result of other factors. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.

We then compared Alcadon Group's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 17% in the same period, which is a bit concerning.

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. If you're wondering about Alcadon Group's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Alcadon Group Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Alcadon Group has a low three-year median payout ratio of 21% (meaning, the company keeps the remaining 79% of profits) which means that the company is retaining more of its earnings. However, the low earnings growth number doesn't reflect this as high growth usually follows high profit retention. So there could be some other explanation in that regard. For instance, the company's business may be deteriorating.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Alcadon Group has some positive aspects to its business. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a moderate 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. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings are expected to accelerate. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

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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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