What You Must Know About Euro Tech Holdings Company Limited’s (NASDAQ:CLWT) Return on Equity
Euro Tech Holdings Company Limited (NASDAQ:CLWT) generated a below-average return on equity of 4.32% in the past 12 months, while its industry returned 12.76%. CLWT’s results could indicate a relatively inefficient operation to its peers, and while this may be the case, it is important to understand what ROE is made up of and how it should be interpreted. Knowing these components could change your view on CLWT’s performance. I will take you through how metrics such as financial leverage impact ROE which may affect the overall sustainability of CLWT’s returns. View our latest analysis for Euro Tech Holdings
Breaking down Return on Equity
Return on Equity (ROE) is a measure of Euro Tech Holdings’s profit relative to 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
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 Euro Tech Holdings, which is 8.49%. Since Euro Tech Holdings’s return does not cover its cost, with a difference of -4.17%, this means its current use of equity is not efficient and not sustainable. Very simply, Euro Tech Holdings pays more 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
Essentially, profit margin shows how much money the company makes after paying for all its expenses. The other component, asset turnover, illustrates how much revenue Euro Tech Holdings 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 financial leverage can artificially inflate ROE, we need to look at how much debt Euro Tech Holdings currently has. At 2.21%, Euro Tech Holdings’s debt-to-equity ratio appears low and indicates that Euro Tech Holdings still has room to increase leverage and grow its profits.
Next Steps:
ROE is one of many ratios which meaningfully dissects financial statements, which illustrates the quality of a company. Euro Tech Holdings exhibits a weak ROE against its peers, as well as insufficient levels to cover its own cost of equity this year. However, ROE is not likely to be inflated by excessive debt funding, giving shareholders more conviction in the sustainability of returns, which has headroom to increase further. Although ROE can be a useful metric, it is only a small part of diligent research.
For Euro Tech Holdings, 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 Euro Tech Holdings 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 Euro Tech Holdings is currently mispriced by the market.
Other High-Growth Alternatives : Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of Euro Tech Holdings? 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.
