Is Hill & Smith PLC's (LON:HILS) Recent Stock Performance Influenced By Its Fundamentals In Any Way?
Hill & Smith's (LON:HILS) stock is up by a considerable 16% over the past three months. As most would know, fundamentals are what usually guide market price movements over the long-term, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. Specifically, we decided to study Hill & Smith's ROE in this article.
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.
See our latest analysis for Hill & Smith
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
ROE 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 Hill & Smith is:
16% = UK£65m ÷ UK£407m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).
The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. That means that for every £1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated £0.16 in profit.
What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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.
Hill & Smith's Earnings Growth And 16% ROE
To start with, Hill & Smith's ROE looks acceptable. Especially when compared to the industry average of 13% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. Despite this, Hill & Smith's five year net income growth was quite flat over 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. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.
We then compared Hill & Smith's net income growth with the industry and found that the average industry growth rate was 18% in the same 5-year period.
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. If you're wondering about Hill & Smith's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.
Is Hill & Smith Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
The high three-year median payout ratio of 59% (meaning, the company retains only 41% of profits) for Hill & Smith suggests that the company's earnings growth was miniscule as a result of paying out a majority of its earnings.
Additionally, Hill & Smith has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company's management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 41% over the next three years. However, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much despite the lower expected payout ratio.
Conclusion
Overall, we feel that Hill & Smith certainly does have some positive factors to consider. However, while the company does have a high ROE, its earnings growth number is quite disappointing. This can be blamed on the fact that it reinvests only a small portion of its profits and pays out the rest as dividends. Having said that, looking at current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings growth rate is expected to see a huge improvement. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.
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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.
