Willis Towers Watson (NASDAQ:WTW) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 11% over the last three months. Given that the market rewards strong financials in the long-term, we wonder if that is the case in this instance. In this article, we decided to focus on Willis Towers Watson'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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

How Do You 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 Willis Towers Watson is:

11% = US$1.1b ÷ US$9.6b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.11 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 everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

Willis Towers Watson's Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

To begin with, Willis Towers Watson seems to have a respectable ROE. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 13%. Consequently, this likely laid the ground for the decent growth of 9.9% seen over the past five years by Willis Towers Watson.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Willis Towers Watson's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 7.6% in the same period, which is great to see.

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). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. What is WTW worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether WTW is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Willis Towers Watson Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

Willis Towers Watson has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 33% (or a retention ratio of 67%) and a respectable amount of growth in earnings as we saw above, meaning that the company has been making efficient use of its profits.

Moreover, Willis Towers Watson is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Existing analyst estimates suggest that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 13% over the next three years. As a result, the expected drop in Willis Towers Watson's payout ratio explains the anticipated rise in the company's future ROE to 18%, over the same period.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with Willis Towers Watson's performance. In particular, it's great to see that the company is investing heavily into its business and along with a high rate of return, that has resulted in a sizeable 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. 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.

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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.