Does The Market Have A Low Tolerance For Chesnara plc's (LON:CSN) Mixed Fundamentals?
Chesnara (LON:CSN) has had a rough month with its share price down 9.2%. It is possible that the markets have ignored the company's differing financials and decided to lean-in to the negative sentiment. Long-term fundamentals are usually what drive market outcomes, so it's worth paying close attention. In this article, we decided to focus on Chesnara's ROE.
Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
Check out our latest analysis for Chesnara
How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for ROE is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Chesnara is:
9.8% = UK£46m ÷ UK£468m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2021).
The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every £1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated £0.10 in profit.
What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?
Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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 everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.
Chesnara's Earnings Growth And 9.8% ROE
At first glance, Chesnara seems to have a decent ROE. Yet, the fact that the company's ROE is lower than the industry average of 13% does temper our expectations. Moreover, Chesnara's net income shrunk at a rate of 5.3%over the past five years. Bear in mind, the company does have a high ROE. It is just that the industry ROE is higher. Hence there might be some other aspects that are causing earnings to shrink. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.
Next, when we compared with the industry, which has shrunk its earnings at a rate of 2.8% in the same period, we still found Chesnara's performance to be quite bleak, because the company has been shrinking its earnings faster than the industry.
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. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about Chesnara's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.
Is Chesnara Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Chesnara has a high three-year median payout ratio of 77% (that is, it is retaining 23% 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. Our risks dashboard should have the 4 risks we have identified for Chesnara.
In addition, Chesnara 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. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to rise to 105% over the next three years.
Summary
On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by Chesnara can be open to many interpretations. On the one hand, the company does have a decent rate of return, however, its earnings growth number is quite disappointing and as discussed earlier, the low retained earnings is hampering the growth. In addition, on studying the latest analyst forecasts, we found that the company's earnings are expected to continue to shrink. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.
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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