What You Must Know About Severn Bancorp Inc’s (SVBI) Return on Equity
Severn Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SVBI) delivered a less impressive 4.29% ROE over the past year, compared to the 7.15% return generated by its industry. SVBI’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 SVBI’s performance. Today I will look at how components such as financial leverage can influence ROE which may impact the sustainability of SVBI’s returns. View our latest analysis for Severn Bancorp
What you must know about ROE
Return on Equity (ROE) is a measure of SVBI’s profit relative to its shareholders’ equity. It essentially shows how much SVBI can generate in earnings given the amount of equity it has raised. 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
Returns are usually compared to costs to measure the efficiency of capital. SVBI’s cost of equity is 9.28%. Given a discrepancy of -4.99% between return and cost, this indicated that SVBI may be paying more for its capital than what it’s generating 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. Asset turnover shows how much revenue SVBI can generate with its current asset base. The most interesting ratio, and reflective of sustainability of its ROE, is financial leverage. Since financial leverage can artificially inflate ROE, we need to look at how much debt SVBI currently has. The debt-to-equity ratio currently stands at a balanced 115.92%, meaning the ROE is a result of its capacity to produce profit growth without a huge debt burden.
What this means for you:
Are you a shareholder? SVBI exhibits a weak ROE against its peers, as well as insufficient levels to cover its own cost of equity this year. Since its existing ROE is not fuelled by unsustainable debt, investors shouldn’t give up as SVBI still has capacity to improve shareholder returns by borrowing to invest in new projects in the future. If you’re looking for new ideas for high-returning stocks, you should take a look at our free platform to see the list of stocks with Return on Equity over 20%.
Are you a potential investor? If SVBI has been on your watch list for a while, making an investment decision based on ROE alone is unwise. I recommend you do additional fundamental analysis by looking through our most recent infographic report on Severn Bancorp to help you make a more informed investment decision.
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.
