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Pro-Pac Packaging Limited's (ASX:PPG) Financials Are Too Obscure To Link With Current Share Price Momentum: What's In Store For the Stock?

Pro-Pac Packaging (ASX:PPG) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 15% over the last month. However, we wonder if the company's inconsistent financials would have any adverse impact on the current share price momentum. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Pro-Pac Packaging's ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

See our latest analysis for Pro-Pac Packaging

How Is ROE Calculated?

Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

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So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Pro-Pac Packaging is:

5.4% = AU$7.8m ÷ AU$145m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2021).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each A$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made A$0.05 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. 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 Pro-Pac Packaging's Earnings Growth And 5.4% ROE

On the face of it, Pro-Pac Packaging's ROE is not much to talk about. A quick further study shows that the company's ROE doesn't compare favorably to the industry average of 10% either. Therefore, it might not be wrong to say that the five year net income decline of 8.6% seen by Pro-Pac Packaging was probably the 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.

That being said, we compared Pro-Pac Packaging'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 6.0% in the same period.

past-earnings-growth
past-earnings-growth

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Is Pro-Pac Packaging fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is Pro-Pac Packaging Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

Despite having a normal three-year median payout ratio of 49% (where it is retaining 51% of its profits), Pro-Pac Packaging has seen a decline in earnings as we saw above. So there could be some other explanations in that regard. For instance, the company's business may be deteriorating.

In addition, Pro-Pac Packaging 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. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 39% of its profits over the next three years. Regardless, the future ROE for Pro-Pac Packaging is predicted to rise to 13% despite there being not much change expected in its payout ratio.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by Pro-Pac Packaging 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. With that said, we studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that while the company has shrunk its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to grow in the future. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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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