Is Food Empire Holdings Limited's (SGX:F03) Latest Stock Performance A Reflection Of Its Financial Health?

Food Empire Holdings' (SGX:F03) stock is up by a considerable 50% over the past three months. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. Specifically, we decided to study Food Empire Holdings' ROE in this article.

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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

View our latest analysis for Food Empire Holdings

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Food Empire Holdings is:

12% = US$26m ÷ US$217m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every SGD1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated SGD0.12 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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.

Food Empire Holdings' Earnings Growth And 12% ROE

To start with, Food Empire Holdings' ROE looks acceptable. Further, the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 11%. This probably goes some way in explaining Food Empire Holdings' significant 25% net income growth over the past five years amongst other factors. However, there could also be other drivers behind this growth. For example, it is possible that the company's management has made some good strategic decisions, or that the company has a low payout ratio.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Food Empire Holdings' growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 9.0% in the same period, which is great to see.

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. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. Is Food Empire Holdings fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is Food Empire Holdings Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Food Empire Holdings' three-year median payout ratio to shareholders is 16%, which is quite low. This implies that the company is retaining 84% of its profits. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business as evidenced by the growth seen by the company.

Besides, Food Empire Holdings has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 30% over the next three years. Despite the higher expected payout ratio, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with Food Empire Holdings' performance. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business, and at a high rate of return. Unsurprisingly, this has led to an impressive earnings growth. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. 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. 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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