Yahoo Finance NORMA Group SE's (ETR:NOEJ) Stock Is Rallying But Financials Look Ambiguous: Will The Momentum Continue?
NORMA Group's (ETR:NOEJ) stock is up by a considerable 25% over the past three months. However, we decided to pay attention to the company's fundamentals which don't appear to give a clear sign about the company's financial health. Particularly, we will be paying attention to NORMA Group's 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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.
See our latest analysis for NORMA Group
How Is ROE Calculated?
ROE can be calculated by using the formula:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for NORMA Group is:
5.4% = €41m ÷ €754m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2022).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every €1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of €0.05.
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.
NORMA Group's Earnings Growth And 5.4% ROE
At first glance, NORMA Group's ROE doesn't look very promising. We then compared the company's ROE to the broader industry and were disappointed to see that the ROE is lower than the industry average of 12%. Given the circumstances, the significant decline in net income by 27% seen by NORMA Group over the last five years is not surprising. We believe that there also might be other aspects that are negatively influencing the company's earnings prospects. Such as - low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.
Next, when we compared with the industry, which has shrunk its earnings at a rate of 1.9% in the same period, we still found NORMA Group's performance to be quite bleak, because the company has been shrinking its earnings faster than the industry.
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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is NORMA Group fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.
Is NORMA Group Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
In spite of a normal three-year median payout ratio of 45% (that is, a retention ratio of 55%), the fact that NORMA Group's earnings have shrunk is quite puzzling. 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, NORMA Group 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. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 38% of its profits over the next three years. Still, forecasts suggest that NORMA Group's future ROE will rise to 11% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.
Conclusion
In total, we're a bit ambivalent about NORMA Group's performance. 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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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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