Are Robust Financials Driving The Recent Rally In HRnetGroup Limited's (SGX:CHZ) Stock?

HRnetGroup (SGX:CHZ) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 21% over the last three months. Given the company's impressive performance, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely as a company's financial health over the long-term usually dictates market outcomes. In this article, we decided to focus on HRnetGroup's ROE.

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.

See our latest analysis for HRnetGroup

How Is ROE Calculated?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for HRnetGroup is:

14% = S$45m ÷ S$321m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every SGD1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of SGD0.14.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.

HRnetGroup's Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

To begin with, HRnetGroup seems to have a respectable ROE. Even when compared to the industry average of 13% the company's ROE looks quite decent. This certainly adds some context to HRnetGroup's moderate 5.3% net income growth seen over the past five years.

We then performed a comparison between HRnetGroup's net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 5.3% in the same period.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. What is CHZ worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether CHZ is currently mispriced by the market.

Is HRnetGroup Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

While HRnetGroup has a three-year median payout ratio of 55% (which means it retains 45% of profits), the company has still seen a fair bit of earnings growth in the past, meaning that its high payout ratio hasn't hampered its ability to grow.

Additionally, HRnetGroup has paid dividends over a period of three years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 51% of its profits over the next three years. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 12%.

Summary

In total, we are pretty happy with HRnetGroup's performance. Especially the high ROE, Which has contributed to the impressive growth seen in earnings. Despite the company reinvesting only a small portion of its profits, it still has managed to grow its earnings so that is appreciable. That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. 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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