Are Strong Financial Prospects The Force That Is Driving The Momentum In Heran Co., Ltd.'s TPE:5283) Stock?

Most readers would already be aware that Heran's (TPE:5283) stock increased significantly by 30% over the past 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. Specifically, we decided to study Heran's 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.

Check out our latest analysis for Heran

How Is ROE Calculated?

ROE 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 Heran is:

23% = NT$913m ÷ NT$4.0b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every NT$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of NT$0.23.

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 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.

Heran's Earnings Growth And 23% ROE

To begin with, Heran has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 10% which is quite remarkable. Probably as a result of this, Heran was able to see a decent net income growth of 13% over the last five years.

As a next step, we compared Heran's net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 9.0%.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. 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 Heran is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Heran Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

While Heran has a three-year median payout ratio of 66% (which means it retains 34% 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, Heran has paid dividends over a period of eight years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with Heran's performance. We are particularly impressed by the considerable earnings growth posted by the company, which was likely backed by its high ROE. While the company is paying out most of its earnings as dividends, it has been able to grow its earnings in spite of it, so that's probably a good sign. So far, we've only made a quick discussion around the company's earnings growth. To gain further insights into Heran'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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