Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About CASwell Inc. (TPE:6416)?

It is hard to get excited after looking at CASwell's (TPE:6416) recent performance, when its stock has declined 4.3% over the past three months. 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 CASwell's ROE.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

Check out our latest analysis for CASwell

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

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 CASwell is:

14% = NT$431m ÷ NT$3.2b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each NT$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made NT$0.14 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. 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.

CASwell's Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

To begin with, CASwell seems to have a respectable ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 11% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. For this reason, CASwell's five year net income decline of 3.5% raises the question as to why the high ROE didn't translate into earnings growth. Therefore, there might be some other aspects that could explain this. Such as, the company pays out a huge portion of its earnings as dividends, or is faced with competitive pressures.

So, as a next step, we compared CASwell's performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 6.1% 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. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Is CASwell fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is CASwell Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

CASwell's declining earnings is not surprising given how the company is spending most of its profits in paying dividends, judging by its three-year median payout ratio of 65% (or a retention ratio of 35%). The business is only left with a small pool of capital to reinvest - A vicious cycle that doesn't benefit the company in the long-run. You can see the 3 risks we have identified for CASwell by visiting our risks dashboard for free on our platform here.

Moreover, CASwell has been paying dividends for seven years, which is a considerable amount of time, suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer consistent dividends even though earnings have been shrinking.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like CASwell has some positive aspects to its business. However, while the company does have a high ROE, its earnings growth number is quite disappointing. This can be blamed on the fact that it reinvests only a small portion of its profits and pays out the rest as dividends. Until now, we have only just grazed the surface of the company's past performance by looking at the company's fundamentals. So it may be worth checking this free detailed graph of CASwell's past earnings, as well as revenue and cash flows to get a deeper insight into the company's performance.

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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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