Are Autohome Inc.'s (NYSE:ATHM) Mixed Financials The Reason For Its Gloomy Performance on The Stock Market?
With its stock down 12% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Autohome (NYSE:ATHM). It seems that the market might have completely ignored the positive aspects of the company's fundamentals and decided to weigh-in more on the negative aspects. Stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financial performance over the long term, and therefore we decided to pay more attention to the company's financial performance. In this article, we decided to focus on Autohome's ROE.
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. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.
Check out our latest analysis for Autohome
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
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 Autohome is:
7.7% = CN¥1.9b ÷ CN¥25b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2023).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.08 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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.
Autohome's Earnings Growth And 7.7% ROE
On the face of it, Autohome's ROE is not much to talk about. However, its ROE is similar to the industry average of 6.5%, so we won't completely dismiss the company. But then again, Autohome's five year net income shrunk at a rate of 7.3%. Bear in mind, the company does have a slightly low ROE. Hence, this goes some way in explaining the shrinking earnings.
That being said, we compared Autohome's performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 12% in the same period.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. What is ATHM worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether ATHM is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Autohome Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Autohome's low three-year median payout ratio of 21% (implying that it retains the remaining 79% of its profits) comes as a surprise when you pair it with the shrinking earnings. The low payout should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings and consequently, should see some growth. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For instance, the business has faced some headwinds.
Moreover, Autohome has been paying dividends for three years, which is a considerable amount of time, suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer consistent dividends even though earnings have been shrinking. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 22%. As a result, Autohome's ROE is not expected to change by much either, which we inferred from the analyst estimate of 7.9% for future ROE.
Conclusion
On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by Autohome can be open to many interpretations. While the company does have a high rate of reinvestment, the low ROE means that all that reinvestment is not reaping any benefit to its investors, and moreover, its having a negative impact on the 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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