Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About Utah Medical Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:UTMD)?

It is hard to get excited after looking at Utah Medical Products' (NASDAQ:UTMD) recent performance, when its stock has declined 6.6% over the past week. However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Utah Medical Products' ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

View our latest analysis for Utah Medical Products

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 Utah Medical Products is:

12% = US$12m ÷ US$98m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every $1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of $0.12.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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. 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.

Utah Medical Products' Earnings Growth And 12% ROE

At first glance, Utah Medical Products seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 12%. Despite the moderate return on equity, Utah Medical Products has posted a net income growth of 4.2% over the past five years. A few likely reasons that could be keeping earnings growth low are - the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.

We then compared Utah Medical Products' net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 13% in the same period, which is a bit concerning.

past-earnings-growth

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. 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 Utah Medical Products is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Utah Medical Products Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

While Utah Medical Products has a decent three-year median payout ratio of 30% (or a retention ratio of 70%), it has seen very little growth in earnings. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

Moreover, Utah Medical Products has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth.

Summary

In total, it does look like Utah Medical Products 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.

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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