What is Behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited’s (TSM) Superior ROE?
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) delivered an ROE of 27.43% over the past 12 months, which is an impressive feat relative to its industry average of 13.00% during the same period. On the surface, this looks fantastic since we know that TSM has made large profits from little equity capital; however, ROE doesn’t tell us if management have borrowed heavily to make this happen. Today, we’ll take a closer look at some factors like financial leverage to see how sustainable TSM’s ROE is. Check out our latest analysis for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
What you must know about ROE
Return on Equity (ROE) weighs TSM’s profit against the level of its shareholders’ equity. An ROE of 27.43% implies TWD0.27 returned on every TWD1 invested. While a higher ROE is preferred in most cases, there are several other factors we should consider before drawing any conclusions.
Return on Equity = Net Profit ÷ Shareholders Equity
ROE is measured against cost of equity in order to determine the efficiency of TSM’s equity capital deployed. Its cost of equity is 10.23%. Given a positive discrepancy of 17.21% between return and cost, this indicates that TSM pays less for its capital than what it generates in return, which is a sign of capital efficiency. ROE can be broken down into three different ratios: net profit margin, asset turnover, and financial leverage. This is called the Dupont Formula:
Dupont Formula
ROE = profit margin × asset turnover × financial leverage
ROE = (annual net profit ÷ sales) × (sales ÷ assets) × (assets ÷ shareholders’ equity)
ROE = annual net profit ÷ shareholders’ equity
Essentially, profit margin shows how much money the company makes after paying for all its expenses. Asset turnover shows how much revenue TSM can generate with its current asset base. The most interesting ratio, and reflective of sustainability of its ROE, is financial leverage. Since financial leverage can artificially inflate ROE, we need to look at how much debt TSM currently has. At 17.43%, TSM’s debt-to-equity ratio appears low and indicates the above-average ROE is generated from its capacity to increase profit without a large debt burden.
What this means for you:
Are you a shareholder? TSM’s above-industry ROE is encouraging, and is also in excess of its cost of equity. Since ROE is not inflated by excessive debt, it might be a good time to add more of TSM to your portfolio if your personal research is confirming what the ROE is telling you. If you're looking for new ideas for high-returning stocks, you should take a look at our free platform to see the list of stocks with Return on Equity over 20%.
Are you a potential investor? If TSM has been on your watch list for a while, making an investment decision based on ROE alone is unwise. I recommend you do additional fundamental analysis by looking through our most recent infographic report on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to help you make a more informed investment decision.
To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.
