Terminix Global Holdings, Inc.'s (NYSE:TMX) Financials Are Too Obscure To Link With Current Share Price Momentum: What's In Store For the Stock?

Terminix Global Holdings (NYSE:TMX) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 25% over the last three months. However, we wonder if the company's inconsistent financials would have any adverse impact on the current share price momentum. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Terminix Global Holdings' ROE today.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

See our latest analysis for Terminix Global Holdings

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 Terminix Global Holdings is:

2.1% = US$47m ÷ US$2.2b (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 $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.02 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

A Side By Side comparison of Terminix Global Holdings' Earnings Growth And 2.1% ROE

As you can see, Terminix Global Holdings' ROE looks pretty weak. Not just that, even compared to the industry average of 8.5%, the company's ROE is entirely unremarkable. Therefore, it might not be wrong to say that the five year net income decline of 24% seen by Terminix Global Holdings was possibly a result of it having a lower ROE. However, there could also be other factors causing the earnings to decline. For example, the business has allocated capital poorly, or that the company has a very high payout ratio.

So, as a next step, we compared Terminix Global Holdings' 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 14% in the same period.

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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Has the market priced in the future outlook for TMX? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Terminix Global Holdings Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Conclusion

On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by Terminix Global Holdings can be open to many interpretations. While the company does have a high rate of profit retention, its low rate of return is probably hampering its earnings growth. Having said that, looking at current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings growth rate is expected to see a huge improvement. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.

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