Is Weakness In SEB SA (EPA:SK) Stock A Sign That The Market Could be Wrong Given Its Strong Financial Prospects?

Simply Wall St · 08/31 06:28

SEB (EPA:SK) has had a rough three months with its share price down 17%. But if you pay close attention, you might gather that its strong financials could mean that the stock could potentially see an increase in value in the long-term, given how markets usually reward companies with good financial health. In this article, we decided to focus on SEB'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.

See our latest analysis for SEB

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

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 SEB is:

14% = €467m ÷ €3.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. That means that for every €1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated €0.14 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For 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. 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.

SEB's Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

At first glance, SEB seems to have a decent ROE. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 14%. However, we are curious as to how SEB's decent returns still resulted in flat growth for SEB in the past five years. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven't been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering the company's growth. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

Given that the industry shrunk its earnings at a rate of 2.5% over the last few years, the net income growth of the company is quite impressive.

past-earnings-growth
ENXTPA:SK Past Earnings Growth August 31st 2024

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. Has the market priced in the future outlook for SK? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is SEB Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

In spite of a normal three-year median payout ratio of 36% (or a retention ratio of 64%), SEB hasn't seen much growth in its earnings. So there could be some other explanation in that regard. For instance, the company's business may be deteriorating.

Additionally, SEB has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company's management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 34% of its profits over the next three years. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 14%.

Summary

Overall, we are quite pleased with SEB'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. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.