Probiotec Limited's (ASX:PBP) Stock Been Rising: Are Strong Financials Guiding The Market?

Probiotec's (ASX:PBP) stock is up by 6.5% over the past three months. Given its impressive performance, we decided to study the company's key financial indicators as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. In this article, we decided to focus on Probiotec'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.

See our latest analysis for Probiotec

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Probiotec is:

11% = AU$6.4m ÷ AU$61m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every A$1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn A$0.11 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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. 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.

Probiotec's Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

To start with, Probiotec's ROE looks acceptable. Further, the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 12%. This probably goes some way in explaining Probiotec's significant 29% 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 example, it is possible that the company's management has made some good strategic decisions, or that the company has a low payout ratio.

As a next step, we compared Probiotec'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 11%.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. Has the market priced in the future outlook for PBP? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Probiotec Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Probiotec has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 53%, meaning the company only retains 47% of its income. This implies that the company has been able to achieve high earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.

Besides, Probiotec has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 41% over the next three years. However, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much despite the lower expected payout ratio.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with Probiotec'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. That being so, a study of the latest analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to see a slowdown in its future earnings growth. 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.

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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