Episil-Precision Inc.'s (TPE:3016) Stock Has Shown Weakness Lately But Financial Prospects Look Decent: Is The Market Wrong?

With its stock down 3.9% over the past month, it is easy to disregard Episil-Precision (TPE:3016). However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. In this article, we decided to focus on Episil-Precision's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

Check out our latest analysis for Episil-Precision

How Is ROE Calculated?

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 Episil-Precision is:

0.6% = NT$26m ÷ NT$4.0b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 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$0.01 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.

Episil-Precision's Earnings Growth And 0.6% ROE

As you can see, Episil-Precision's ROE looks pretty weak. Not just that, even compared to the industry average of 11%, the company's ROE is entirely unremarkable. Episil-Precision was still able to see a decent net income growth of 12% over the past five years. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.

We then compared Episil-Precision's net income growth with the industry and we're pleased to see that the company's growth figure is higher when compared with the industry which has a growth rate of 9.9% in the same period.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. 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. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Episil-Precision is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Episil-Precision Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

Episil-Precision has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 70%, meaning that it is left with only 30% to reinvest into its business. This implies that the company has been able to achieve decent earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.

Additionally, Episil-Precision has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Episil-Precision has some positive aspects to its business. While no doubt its earnings growth is pretty substantial, we do feel that the reinvestment rate is pretty low, meaning, the earnings growth number could have been significantly higher had the company been retaining more of its profits. So far, we've only made a quick discussion around the company's earnings growth. You can do your own research on Episil-Precision 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. 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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