Are VIP Gloves Limited's (ASX:VIP) Mixed Financials The Reason For Its Gloomy Performance on The Stock Market?
VIP Gloves (ASX:VIP) has had a rough three months with its share price down 19%. We, however decided to study the company's financials to determine if they have got anything to do with the price decline. Stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financial performance over the long term, and therefore we decided to pay more attention to the company's financial performance. In this article, we decided to focus on VIP Gloves' 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.
See our latest analysis for VIP Gloves
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for return on equity is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for VIP Gloves is:
1.2% = AU$116k ÷ AU$9.7m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).
The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every A$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of A$0.01.
Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?
Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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 VIP Gloves' Earnings Growth And 1.2% ROE
It is quite clear that VIP Gloves' ROE is rather low. Even when compared to the industry average of 9.8%, the ROE figure is pretty disappointing. Therefore, it might not be wrong to say that the five year net income decline of 19% seen by VIP Gloves was possibly a result of it having a lower ROE. However, there could also be other factors causing the earnings to decline. Such as - low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.
Next, when we compared with the industry, which has shrunk its earnings at a rate of 0.2% in the same period, we still found VIP Gloves' performance to be quite bleak, because the company has been shrinking its earnings faster than the industry.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. If you're wondering about VIP Gloves''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.
Is VIP Gloves Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Conclusion
On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by VIP Gloves can be open to many interpretations. Even though it appears to be retaining most of its profits, given the low ROE, investors may not be benefitting from all that reinvestment after all. The low earnings growth suggests our theory correct. Wrapping up, we would proceed with caution with this company and one way of doing that would be to look at the risk profile of the business. You can see the 4 risks we have identified for VIP Gloves by visiting our risks dashboard for free on our platform here.
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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