Adacel Technologies Limited's (ASX:ADA) Stock Has Shown Weakness Lately But Financial Prospects Look Decent: Is The Market Wrong?
It is hard to get excited after looking at Adacel Technologies' (ASX:ADA) recent performance, when its stock has declined 15% over the past month. However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Specifically, we decided to study Adacel Technologies' ROE in this article.
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 Adacel Technologies
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
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 Adacel Technologies is:
23% = US$3.3m ÷ US$14m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every A$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of A$0.23.
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. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. 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.
A Side By Side comparison of Adacel Technologies' Earnings Growth And 23% ROE
To begin with, Adacel Technologies has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 9.7% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. Needless to say, we are quite surprised to see that Adacel Technologies' net income shrunk at a rate of 12% over the past five years. We reckon that there could be some other factors at play here that are preventing the company's growth. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.
So, as a next step, we compared Adacel Technologies' performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 20% in the same period.
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. If you're wondering about Adacel Technologies''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.
Is Adacel Technologies Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Adacel Technologies has a high three-year median payout ratio of 57% (that is, it is retaining 43% of its profits). This suggests that the company is paying most of its profits as dividends to its shareholders. This goes some way in explaining why its earnings have been shrinking. The business is only left with a small pool of capital to reinvest - A vicious cycle that doesn't benefit the company in the long-run. You can see the 5 risks we have identified for Adacel Technologies by visiting our risks dashboard for free on our platform here.
In addition, Adacel Technologies has been paying dividends over a period of eight years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is preferred by the management even though earnings have been in decline. Looking at the current analyst consensus data, we can see that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 80% over the next three years. However, Adacel Technologies' future ROE is expected to rise to 31% despite the expected increase in the company's payout ratio. We infer that there could be other factors that could be driving the anticipated growth in the company's ROE.
Conclusion
Overall, we feel that Adacel Technologies certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Yet, the low earnings growth is a bit concerning, especially given that the company has a high rate of return. Investors could have benefitted from the high ROE, had the company been reinvesting more of its earnings. As discussed earlier, the company is retaining a small portion of its profits. Until now, we have only just grazed the surface of the company's past performance by looking at the company's fundamentals. You can do your own research on Adacel Technologies and see how it has performed in the past by looking at this FREE detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flows.
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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