What You Must Know About AGL Energy Limited’s (ASX:AGL) ROE
The content of this article will benefit those of you who are starting to educate yourself about investing in the stock market and want to start learning about core concepts of fundamental analysis on practical examples from today’s market.
With an ROE of 18.9%, AGL Energy Limited (ASX:AGL) outpaced its own industry which delivered a less exciting 10.7% over the past year. Superficially, this looks great since we know that AGL has generated big profits with little equity capital; however, ROE doesn’t tell us how much AGL has borrowed in debt. Today, we’ll take a closer look at some factors like financial leverage to see how sustainable AGL’s ROE is.
Check out our latest analysis for AGL Energy
Breaking down ROE — the mother of all ratios
Return on Equity (ROE) weighs AGL Energy’s profit against the level of its shareholders’ equity. It essentially shows how much the company can generate in earnings given the amount of equity it has raised. 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
Returns are usually compared to costs to measure the efficiency of capital. AGL Energy’s cost of equity is 8.6%. Since AGL Energy’s return covers its cost in excess of 10.4%, its use of equity capital is efficient and likely to be sustainable. Simply put, AGL Energy pays less for its capital than what it generates in return. ROE can be broken down into three different 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. The other component, asset turnover, illustrates how much revenue AGL Energy can make from its 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 ROE can be artificially increased through excessive borrowing, we should check AGL Energy’s historic debt-to-equity ratio. Currently the debt-to-equity ratio stands at a low 35.1%, which means its above-average ROE is driven by its ability to grow its profit without a significant debt burden.
Next Steps:
ROE is one of many ratios which meaningfully dissects financial statements, which illustrates the quality of a company. AGL Energy 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. ROE is a helpful signal, but it is definitely not sufficient on its own to make an investment decision.
For AGL Energy, there are three key factors you should look at:
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.
Valuation: What is AGL Energy 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 AGL Energy is currently mispriced by the market.
Other High-Growth Alternatives : Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of AGL Energy? 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 past 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. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
