Rexford Industrial Realty, Inc.'s (NYSE:REXR) Stock Has Seen Strong Momentum: Does That Call For Deeper Study Of Its Financial Prospects?
Rexford Industrial Realty (NYSE:REXR) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 12% over the last 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. In this article, we decided to focus on Rexford Industrial Realty's ROE.
Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.
View our latest analysis for Rexford Industrial Realty
How Is ROE Calculated?
Return on equity 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 Rexford Industrial Realty is:
2.2% = US$69m ÷ US$3.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).
The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.02 in profit.
What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.
A Side By Side comparison of Rexford Industrial Realty's Earnings Growth And 2.2% ROE
It is hard to argue that Rexford Industrial Realty's ROE is much good in and of itself. Even compared to the average industry ROE of 5.0%, the company's ROE is quite dismal. However, we we're pleasantly surprised to see that Rexford Industrial Realty grew its net income at a significant rate of 36% in the last five years. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.
As a next step, we compared Rexford Industrial Realty's net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 14%.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. What is REXR worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether REXR is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Rexford Industrial Realty Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Rexford Industrial Realty has a very high three-year median payout ratio of 60%. This means that it has only 40% of its income left to reinvest into its business. However, it's not unusual to see a REIT with such a high payout ratio mainly due to statutory requirements. In spite of this, the company was able to grow its earnings significantly, as we saw above.
Moreover, Rexford Industrial Realty is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of seven years of paying a dividend. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 67% of its profits over the next three years. Regardless, Rexford Industrial Realty's ROE is speculated to decline to 0.4% despite there being no anticipated change in its payout ratio.
Summary
Overall, we feel that Rexford Industrial Realty certainly does have some positive factors to consider. While no doubt its earnings growth is pretty substantial, we do feel that the reinvestment rate is pretty low, meaning, the earnings growth number could have been significantly higher had the company been retaining more of its profits. That being so, according to the latest industry analyst forecasts, the company's earnings are expected to shrink in the future. 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.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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