Are Strong Financial Prospects The Force That Is Driving The Momentum In Lundin Gold Inc.'s TSE:LUG) Stock?
Lundin Gold (TSE:LUG) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 6.7% over the last month. Given the company's impressive performance, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely as a company's financial health over the long-term usually dictates market outcomes. In this article, we decided to focus on Lundin Gold'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. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
Check out our latest analysis for Lundin Gold
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for ROE is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Lundin Gold is:
19% = US$159m ÷ US$846m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each CA$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made CA$0.19 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.
A Side By Side comparison of Lundin Gold's Earnings Growth And 19% ROE
To start with, Lundin Gold's ROE looks acceptable. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 11%. This certainly adds some context to Lundin Gold's exceptional 45% net income growth seen over the past five years. However, there could also be other causes behind this growth. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.
As a next step, we compared Lundin Gold'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 28%.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. What is LUG worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether LUG is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Lundin Gold Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Lundin Gold doesn't pay any dividend currently which essentially means that it has been reinvesting all of its profits into the business. This definitely contributes to the high earnings growth number that we discussed above.
Conclusion
In total, we are pretty happy with Lundin Gold's performance. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. With that said, on studying the latest analyst forecasts, we found that while the company has seen growth in its past earnings, analysts expect its future earnings to shrink. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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.
