Chase Corporation (NYSEMKT:CCF) On An Uptrend: Could Fundamentals Be Driving The Stock?
Chase's (NYSEMKT:CCF) stock is up by 8.6% over the past three months. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to investigate if the company's decent financials had a hand to play in the recent price move. In this article, we decided to focus on Chase'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. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
View our latest analysis for Chase
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
Return on equity 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 Chase is:
12% = US$39m ÷ US$319m (Based on the trailing twelve months to February 2021).
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 $0.12 in profit.
What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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. 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.
A Side By Side comparison of Chase's Earnings Growth And 12% ROE
To begin with, Chase seems to have a respectable ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 10% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. However, we are curious as to how the high returns still resulted in flat growth for Chase in the past five years. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven't been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering 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.
As a next step, we compared Chase's net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 5.5% 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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is Chase fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.
Is Chase Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Chase's low three-year median payout ratio of 20%, (meaning the company retains80% of profits) should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings and consequently, should see higher growth than it has reported.
In addition, Chase 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.
Summary
In total, it does look like Chase has some positive aspects to its business. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a high ROE and and a high reinvestment rate. We believe that there might be some outside factors that could be having a negative impact on the business. So far, we've only made a quick discussion around the company's earnings growth. To gain further insights into Chase's past profit growth, check out this visualization of past earnings, revenue and cash flows.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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