Most readers would already be aware that Bumitama Agri’s (SGX:P8Z) stock increased significantly by 15% over the past three months. Given that the market rewards strong financials in the long-term, we wonder if that is the case in this instance. In this article, we decided to focus on Bumitama Agri’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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.
Check out our latest analysis for Bumitama Agri
The formula for return on equity is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders’ Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Bumitama Agri is:
17% = Rp2.5t ÷ Rp15t (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).
The ‘return’ is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each SGD1 of shareholders’ capital it has, the company made SGD0.17 in profit.
So far, we’ve learned that ROE is a measure of a company’s profitability. 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.
To begin with, Bumitama Agri seems to have a respectable ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 7.4% the company’s ROE looks pretty remarkable. This probably laid the ground for Bumitama Agri’s significant 25% net income growth seen over the past five years. We believe that there might also be other aspects that are positively influencing the company’s earnings growth. Such as – high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.
As a next step, we compared Bumitama Agri’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 16%.
Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company’s expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock’s future looks promising or ominous. 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 Bumitama Agri is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.
