Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery (SZSE:002304) has had a rough three months with its share price down 14%. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company's financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. Specifically, we decided to study Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery's ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. 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?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery is:

18% = CN¥10b ÷ CN¥58b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each CN¥1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made CN¥0.18 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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. 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.

Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery's Earnings Growth And 18% ROE

At first glance, Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery seems to have a decent ROE. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 16%. Consequently, this likely laid the ground for the decent growth of 6.3% seen over the past five years by Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery.

We then compared Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 15% in the same 5-year period, which is a bit concerning.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

While Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery has a three-year median payout ratio of 59% (which means it retains 41% of profits), the company has still seen a fair bit of earnings growth in the past, meaning that its high payout ratio hasn't hampered its ability to grow.

Besides, Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 69%. Still, forecasts suggest that Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery's future ROE will rise to 21% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.

Conclusion

On the whole, we do feel that Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery has some positive attributes. Its earnings have grown respectably as we saw earlier, which was likely due to the company reinvesting its earnings at a pretty high rate of return. However, given the high ROE, we do think that the company is reinvesting a small portion of its profits. This could likely be preventing the company from growing to its full extent. That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts 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.