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Are BHP Group Limited's (ASX:BHP) Fundamentals Good Enough to Warrant Buying Given The Stock's Recent Weakness?

It is hard to get excited after looking at BHP Group's (ASX:BHP) recent performance, when its stock has declined 6.9% 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. Specifically, we decided to study BHP Group's ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

View our latest analysis for BHP Group

How Is ROE Calculated?

ROE can be calculated by using the formula:

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

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So, based on the above formula, the ROE for BHP Group is:

43% = US$20b ÷ US$47b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2022).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every A$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated A$0.43 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For 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. 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.

BHP Group's Earnings Growth And 43% ROE

To begin with, BHP Group has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 16% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. Under the circumstances, BHP Group's considerable five year net income growth of 25% was to be expected.

As a next step, we compared BHP Group's net income growth with the industry and found that the company has a similar growth figure when compared with the industry average growth rate of 29% in the same period.

past-earnings-growth
past-earnings-growth

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). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. 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 BHP Group is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is BHP Group Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 92% (implying that it keeps only 7.6% of profits) for BHP Group suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of the earnings to its shareholders.

Moreover, BHP Group is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 65% over the next three years. Still forecasts suggest that BHP Group's future ROE will drop to 21% even though the the company's payout ratio is expected to decrease. This suggests that there could be other factors could driving the anticipated decline in the company's ROE.

Summary

In total, it does look like BHP Group has some positive aspects to its business. Namely, its high earnings growth, which was likely due to its high ROE. However, investors could have benefitted even more from the high ROE, had the company been reinvesting more of its earnings. As discussed earlier, the company is retaining hardly any of its profits. That being so, according to the latest industry analyst forecasts, the company's earnings are expected to shrink in the future. 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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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