Should You Be Excited About Space-Communication Ltd's (TLV:SCC) 57% Return On Equity?

Simply Wall St · 10/07/2025 04:10

One of the best investments we can make is in our own knowledge and skill set. With that in mind, this article will work through how we can use Return On Equity (ROE) to better understand a business. We'll use ROE to examine Space-Communication Ltd (TLV:SCC), by way of a worked example.

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. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

ROE 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 Space-Communication is:

57% = US$17m ÷ US$29m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2025).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every ₪1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of ₪0.57.

Check out our latest analysis for Space-Communication

Does Space-Communication Have A Good ROE?

By comparing a company's ROE with its industry average, we can get a quick measure of how good it is. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. Pleasingly, Space-Communication has a superior ROE than the average (11%) in the Telecom industry.

roe
TASE:SCC Return on Equity October 7th 2025

That's clearly a positive. Bear in mind, a high ROE doesn't always mean superior financial performance. Aside from changes in net income, a high ROE can also be the outcome of high debt relative to equity, which indicates risk. Our risks dashboardshould have the 4 risks we have identified for Space-Communication.

Why You Should Consider Debt When Looking At ROE

Most companies need money -- from somewhere -- to grow their profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the first and second cases, the ROE will reflect this use of cash for investment in the business. In the latter case, the use of debt will improve the returns, but will not change the equity. That will make the ROE look better than if no debt was used.

Space-Communication's Debt And Its 57% ROE

We think Space-Communication uses a significant amount of debt to maximize its returns, as it has a significantly higher debt to equity ratio of 11.02. Its ROE is clearly quite good, but it seems to be boosted by the significant use of debt by the company.

Summary

Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. Companies that can achieve high returns on equity without too much debt are generally of good quality. If two companies have around the same level of debt to equity, and one has a higher ROE, I'd generally prefer the one with higher ROE.

But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. Profit growth rates, versus the expectations reflected in the price of the stock, are a particularly important to consider. So I think it may be worth checking this free this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.