What You Must Know About MGE Energy Inc’s (NASDAQ:MGEE) ROE
This article is intended for those of you who are at the beginning of your investing journey and want a simplistic look at the return on MGE Energy Inc (NASDAQ:MGEE) stock.
MGE Energy Inc (NASDAQ:MGEE) delivered an ROE of 12.49% over the past 12 months, which is an impressive feat relative to its industry average of 9.12% during the same period. On the surface, this looks fantastic since we know that MGEE 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 MGEE’s ROE is. Check out our latest analysis for MGE Energy
Breaking down Return on Equity
Firstly, Return on Equity, or ROE, is simply the percentage of last years’ earning against the book value of shareholders’ equity. An ROE of 12.49% implies $0.12 returned on every $1 invested. While a higher ROE is preferred in most cases, there are several other factors we should consider before drawing any conclusions.
Return on Equity = Net Profit ÷ Shareholders Equity
ROE is measured against cost of equity in order to determine the efficiency of MGE Energy’s equity capital deployed. Its cost of equity is 8.59%. Given a positive discrepancy of 3.90% between return and cost, this indicates that MGE Energy pays less for its capital than what it generates in return, which is a sign of capital efficiency. 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 MGE 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 financial leverage can artificially inflate ROE, we need to look at how much debt MGE Energy currently has. Currently the debt-to-equity ratio stands at a reasonable 53.95%, which means its above-average ROE is driven by its ability to grow its profit without a significant debt burden.
Next Steps:
While ROE is a relatively simple calculation, it can be broken down into different ratios, each telling a different story about the strengths and weaknesses of a company. MGE 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. Although ROE can be a useful metric, it is only a small part of diligent research.
For MGE Energy, I’ve put together three key aspects you should further examine:
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.
Management:Have insiders been ramping up their shares to take advantage of the market’s sentiment for MGE Energy’s future outlook? Check out our management and board analysis with insights on CEO compensation and governance factors.
Other High-Growth Alternatives : Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of MGE 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 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.
