Is Zentiva S.A.'s (BVB:SCD) Recent Stock Performance Influenced By Its Fundamentals In Any Way?

Simply Wall St · 09/15/2023 05:06

Zentiva's (BVB:SCD) stock is up by a considerable 23% over the past three months. As most would know, fundamentals are what usually guide market price movements over the long-term, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. In this article, we decided to focus on Zentiva's ROE.

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 short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

See our latest analysis for Zentiva

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 Zentiva is:

13% = RON140m ÷ RON1.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each RON1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made RON0.13 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Zentiva's Earnings Growth And 13% ROE

On the face of it, Zentiva's ROE is not much to talk about. However, the fact that the its ROE is quite higher to the industry average of 10.0% doesn't go unnoticed by us. But seeing Zentiva's five year net income decline of 17% over the past five years, we might rethink that. Bear in mind, the company does have a slightly low ROE. It is just that the industry ROE is lower. Hence, this goes some way in explaining the shrinking earnings.

That being said, we compared Zentiva's performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 13% in the same 5-year period.

past-earnings-growth
BVB:SCD Past Earnings Growth September 15th 2023

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. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. If you're wondering about Zentiva's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Zentiva Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Zentiva doesn't pay any dividend, meaning that potentially all of its profits are being reinvested in the business, which doesn't explain why the company's earnings have shrunk if it is retaining all of its profits. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

Summary

In total, it does look like Zentiva has some positive aspects to its business. However, while the company does have a decent ROE and a high profit retention, its earnings growth number is quite disappointing. This suggests that there might be some external threat to the business, that's hampering growth. While we won't completely dismiss the company, what we would do, is try to ascertain how risky the business is to make a more informed decision around the company. You can see the 2 risks we have identified for Zentiva by visiting our risks dashboard for free on our platform here.