Should Weakness in Brunswick Corporation's (NYSE:BC) Stock Be Seen As A Sign That Market Will Correct The Share Price Given Decent Financials?
It is hard to get excited after looking at Brunswick's (NYSE:BC) recent performance, when its stock has declined 7.8% over the past three months. But if you pay close attention, you might find that its key financial indicators look quite decent, which could mean that the stock could potentially rise in the long-term given how markets usually reward more resilient long-term fundamentals. In this article, we decided to focus on Brunswick'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. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
View our latest analysis for Brunswick
How To 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 Brunswick is:
29% = US$473m ÷ US$1.6b (Based on the trailing twelve months to April 2021).
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.29 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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. 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.
Brunswick's Earnings Growth And 29% ROE
To begin with, Brunswick has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Additionally, a comparison with the average industry ROE of 32% also portrays the company's ROE in a good light. However, When you compare Brunswick's high ROE with its rather flat earnings, you are left wondering, what's causing the growth to lag? Therefore, there could be some other aspects that could potentially be preventing the company from growing. Such as, the company pays out a huge portion of its earnings as dividends, or is faced with competitive pressures.
We then compared Brunswick's net income growth with the industry and found that the average industry growth rate was 3.7% 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. Is Brunswick fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.
Is Brunswick Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Despite having a normal three-year median payout ratio of 27% (implying that the company keeps 73% of its income) over the last three years, Brunswick has seen a negligible amount of growth in earnings as we saw above. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.
In addition, Brunswick has been paying dividends over a period of at least ten years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is way more important to the management even if it comes at the cost of business growth. Existing analyst estimates suggest that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 13% over the next three years. Despite the lower expected payout ratio, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much.
Summary
On the whole, we do feel that Brunswick has some positive attributes. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a high ROE and and a high reinvestment rate. We believe that there might be some outside factors that could be having a negative impact on the business. That being so, the latest industry analyst forecasts show that the analysts are expecting to see a huge improvement in the company's earnings growth rate. 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.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
