Is Emmbi Industries Limited's (NSE:EMMBI) Recent Price Movement Underpinned By Its Weak Fundamentals?

Simply Wall St · 03/14 00:22

Emmbi Industries (NSE:EMMBI) has had a rough three months with its share price down 41%. It seems that the market might have completely ignored the positive aspects of the company's fundamentals and decided to weigh-in more on the negative aspects. Fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes so it makes sense to study the company's financials. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Emmbi Industries' ROE today.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

View our latest analysis for Emmbi Industries

How Is ROE Calculated?

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 Emmbi Industries is:

5.1% = ₹93m ÷ ₹1.8b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).

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 ₹0.05 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.

Emmbi Industries' Earnings Growth And 5.1% ROE

It is hard to argue that Emmbi Industries' ROE is much good in and of itself. Even when compared to the industry average of 10%, the ROE figure is pretty disappointing. Given the circumstances, the significant decline in net income by 8.7% seen by Emmbi Industries over the last five years is not surprising. We believe that there also might be other aspects that are negatively influencing the company's earnings prospects. Such as - low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

However, when we compared Emmbi Industries' growth with the industry we found that while the company's earnings have been shrinking, the industry has seen an earnings growth of 15% in the same period. This is quite worrisome.

past-earnings-growth
NSEI:EMMBI Past Earnings Growth March 14th 2025

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). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. Is EMMBI fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.

Is Emmbi Industries Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Emmbi Industries' low three-year median payout ratio of 5.6% (or a retention ratio of 94%) over the last three years should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings to fuel its growth but the company's earnings have actually shrunk. The low payout should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings and consequently, should see some growth. It looks like there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.

In addition, Emmbi Industries has been paying dividends over a period of at least ten years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is way more important to the management even if it comes at the cost of business growth.

Conclusion

In total, we're a bit ambivalent about Emmbi Industries' performance. 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. Our risks dashboard would have the 4 risks we have identified for Emmbi Industries.