With A Return On Equity Of 12%, Has Equifax Inc.'s (NYSE:EFX) Management Done Well?
With A Return On Equity Of 12%, Has Equifax Inc.'s (NYSE:EFX) Management Done Well?
While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. By way of learning-by-doing, we'll look at ROE to gain a better understanding of Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX).
尽管一些投资者已经精通财务指标（帽子提示），但本文适合那些想了解股本回报率（ROE）及其重要性的人。通过边干边学，我们将研究投资回报率，以更好地了解Equifax Inc.（纽约证券交易所代码：EFX）。
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors' money. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
股本回报率或投资回报率是对公司增值和管理投资者资金的有效性的考验。换句话说，它是衡量公司股东提供的资本回报率的盈利比率。
View our latest analysis for Equifax
查看我们对 Equifax 的最新分析
How Is ROE Calculated?
ROE 是如何计算的？
Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:
股本回报率可以使用以下公式计算：
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
股本回报率 = 净利润（来自持续经营业务）÷ 股东权益
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Equifax is:
因此，根据上述公式，Equifax的投资回报率为：
12% = US$526m ÷ US$4.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).
12% = 5.26亿美元 ¥45亿美元（基于截至2023年9月的过去十二个月）。
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every $1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of $0.12.
“回报” 是指公司去年的收益。因此，这意味着其股东每投资1美元，公司就会产生0.12美元的利润。
Does Equifax Have A Good Return On Equity?
Equifax 的股本回报率是否良好？
By comparing a company's ROE with its industry average, we can get a quick measure of how good it is. The limitation of this approach is that some companies are quite different from others, even within the same industry classification. If you look at the image below, you can see Equifax has a similar ROE to the average in the Professional Services industry classification (12%).
通过将公司的投资回报率与行业平均水平进行比较，我们可以快速衡量其表现如何。这种方法的局限性在于，有些公司与其他公司有很大不同，即使属于相同的行业分类也是如此。如果你看下图，你会发现Equifax的投资回报率与专业服务行业分类中的平均水平相似（12％）。
So while the ROE is not exceptional, at least its acceptable. While at least the ROE is not lower than the industry, its still worth checking what role the company's debt plays as high debt levels relative to equity may also make the ROE appear high. If so, this increases its exposure to financial risk.
因此，尽管ROE并不例外，但至少是可以接受的。尽管至少投资回报率不低于该行业，但仍然值得检查该公司的债务起什么作用，因为相对于股本的高债务水平也可能使投资回报率显得很高。如果是这样，则会增加其财务风险敞口。
The Importance Of Debt To Return On Equity
债务对股本回报率的重要性
Most companies need money -- from somewhere -- to grow their profits. That cash can come from retained earnings, issuing new shares (equity), or debt. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but won't affect the total equity. In this manner the use of debt will boost ROE, even though the core economics of the business stay the same.
大多数公司需要来自某个地方的资金来增加利润。这些现金可能来自留存收益、发行新股（股权）或债务。对于第一和第二种选择，投资回报率将反映这种对现金增长的使用。在后一种情况下，用于增长的债务将提高回报，但不会影响总资产。通过这种方式，尽管企业的核心经济保持不变，但债务的使用将提高投资回报率。
Combining Equifax's Debt And Its 12% Return On Equity
结合Equifax的债务及其12％的股本回报率
Equifax clearly uses a high amount of debt to boost returns, as it has a debt to equity ratio of 1.34. With a fairly low ROE, and significant use of debt, it's hard to get excited about this business at the moment. Debt does bring extra risk, so it's only really worthwhile when a company generates some decent returns from it.
Equifax显然使用大量债务来提高回报，因为它的负债权益比率为1.34。由于投资回报率相当低，债务使用量大，目前很难对这项业务感到兴奋。债务确实带来了额外的风险，因此只有当一家公司从中获得可观的回报时，债务才真正值得。
Conclusion
结论
Return on equity is one way we can compare its business quality of different companies. In our books, the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. All else being equal, a higher ROE is better.
股本回报率是我们可以比较不同公司的业务质量的一种方式。在我们的账簿中，尽管债务很低，但质量最高的公司的股本回报率却很高。在其他条件相同的情况下，更高的投资回报率更好。
But when a business is high quality, the market often bids it up to a price that reflects this. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth -- and how much investment is required going forward. So I think it may be worth checking this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
但是，当企业质量很高时，市场通常会以反映这一点的价格对其进行出价。重要的是要考虑其他因素，例如未来的利润增长以及未来需要多少投资。因此，我认为可能值得查看这份关于分析师对公司的预测的免费报告。
But note: Equifax may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt.
但请注意：Equifax可能不是最值得买入的股票。因此，来看看这份免费列出的投资回报率高、债务低的有趣公司的名单。
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