Eastern Media International Corporation's (TPE:2614) Has Had A Decent Run On The Stock market: Are Fundamentals In The Driver's Seat?

Eastern Media International's (TPE:2614) stock is up by 6.6% over the past three months. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to investigate if the company's decent financials had a hand to play in the recent price move. In this article, we decided to focus on Eastern Media International's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

Check out our latest analysis for Eastern Media International

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 Eastern Media International is:

11% = NT$722m ÷ NT$6.6b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each NT$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made NT$0.11 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. 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.

Eastern Media International's Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

To begin with, Eastern Media International seems to have a respectable ROE. Even when compared to the industry average of 10.0% the company's ROE looks quite decent. This probably goes some way in explaining Eastern Media International's significant 41% net income growth over the past five years amongst other factors. We believe that there might also be other aspects that are positively influencing the company's earnings growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.

Given that the industry shrunk its earnings at a rate of 3.2% in the same period, the net income growth of the company is quite impressive.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is Eastern Media International fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is Eastern Media International Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Eastern Media International's very high three-year median payout ratio of 101% suggests that the company is paying more to its shareholders than what it is earning. Despite this, the company's earnings grew significantly as we saw above. Although, it could be worth keeping an eye on the high payout ratio as that's a huge risk. Our risks dashboard should have the 2 risks we have identified for Eastern Media International.

Additionally, Eastern Media International has paid dividends over a period of seven years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Eastern Media International has some positive aspects to its business. Namely, its high earnings growth, which was likely due to its high ROE. However, investors could have benefitted even more from the high ROE, had the company been reinvesting more of its earnings. As discussed earlier, the company is retaining hardly any of its profits. So far, we've only made a quick discussion around the company's earnings growth. To gain further insights into Eastern Media International's past profit growth, check out this visualization of past earnings, revenue and cash flows.

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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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