With An ROE Of 5.87%, Has China Green Agriculture Inc’s (NYSE:CGA) Management Done A Good Job?
China Green Agriculture Inc’s (NYSE:CGA) most recent return on equity was a substandard 5.87% relative to its industry performance of 13.90% over the past year. An investor may attribute an inferior ROE to a relatively inefficient performance, and whilst this can often be the case, knowing the nuts and bolts of the ROE calculation may change that perspective and give you a deeper insight into CGA’s past performance. I will take you through how metrics such as financial leverage impact ROE which may affect the overall sustainability of CGA’s returns. See our latest analysis for China Green Agriculture
Peeling the layers of ROE – trisecting a company’s profitability
Firstly, Return on Equity, or ROE, is simply the percentage of last years’ earning against the book value of shareholders’ equity. An ROE of 5.87% implies $0.06 returned on every $1 invested. Generally speaking, a higher ROE is preferred; however, there are other factors we must also consider before making any conclusions.
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 China Green Agriculture, which is 9.65%. This means China Green Agriculture’s returns actually do not cover its own cost of equity, with a discrepancy of -3.77%. This isn’t sustainable as it implies, very simply, that the company pays more for its capital than what it generates in return. ROE can be split up into three useful 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 China Green Agriculture 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 China Green Agriculture currently has. The debt-to-equity ratio currently stands at a low 3.95%, meaning China Green Agriculture still has headroom to borrow debt to increase profits.
What this means for you:
Are you a shareholder? CGA’s ROE is underwhelming relative to the industry average, and its returns were also not strong enough to cover its own cost of equity. Since its existing ROE is not fuelled by unsustainable debt, investors shouldn’t give up as CGA 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 you are considering investing in CGA, looking at ROE on its own is not enough to make a well-informed decision. I recommend you do additional fundamental analysis by looking through our most recent infographic report on China Green Agriculture 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.
