Should You Expect Utah Medical Products Inc (NASDAQ:UTMD) To Continue Delivering An ROE Of 17.86%?
Utah Medical Products Inc (NASDAQ:UTMD) delivered an ROE of 17.86% over the past 12 months, which is an impressive feat relative to its industry average of 12.14% during the same period. On the surface, this looks fantastic since we know that UTMD 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 UTMD’s ROE is. Check out our latest analysis for Utah Medical Products
Peeling the layers of ROE – trisecting a company’s profitability
Return on Equity (ROE) is a measure of Utah Medical Products’s profit relative to its shareholders’ equity. An ROE of 17.86% implies $0.18 returned on every $1 invested. In most cases, a higher ROE is preferred; however, there are many other factors we must consider prior to making any investment decisions.
Return on Equity = Net Profit ÷ Shareholders Equity
ROE is assessed against cost of equity, which is measured using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) – but let’s not dive into the details of that today. For now, let’s just look at the cost of equity number for Utah Medical Products, which is 8.49%. Since Utah Medical Products’s return covers its cost in excess of 9.37%, its use of equity capital is efficient and likely to be sustainable. Simply put, Utah Medical Products pays less for its capital than what it generates in return. ROE can be dissected into three distinct 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
Basically, profit margin measures how much of revenue trickles down into earnings which illustrates how efficient the business is with its cost management. Asset turnover reveals how much revenue can be generated from Utah Medical Products’s asset base. And finally, financial leverage is simply how much of assets are funded by equity, which exhibits how sustainable the company’s capital structure is. Since financial leverage can artificially inflate ROE, we need to look at how much debt Utah Medical Products currently has. Currently, Utah Medical Products has no debt which means its returns are driven purely by equity capital. Therefore, the level of financial leverage has no impact on ROE, and the ratio is a representative measure of the efficiency of all its capital employed firm-wide.
Next Steps:
ROE is a simple yet informative ratio, illustrating the various components that each measure the quality of the overall stock. Utah Medical Products exhibits a strong ROE against its peers, as well as sufficient returns to cover its cost of equity. Its high ROE is not likely to be driven by high debt. Therefore, investors may have more confidence in the sustainability of this level of returns going forward. Although ROE can be a useful metric, it is only a small part of diligent research.
For Utah Medical Products, I’ve put together three fundamental aspects you should look at:
1. Financial Health: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.
2. Valuation: What is Utah Medical Products worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether Utah Medical Products is currently mispriced by the market.
3. Other High-Growth Alternatives : Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of Utah Medical Products? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large growth potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!
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.
