Is Bell Food Group AG's (VTX:BELL) Recent Performance Tethered To Its Attractive Financial Prospects?

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editorial-team@simplywallst.com (Simply Wall St)

Sun, Oct 1, 2023, 12:27 AM 4 min read

Most readers would already know that Bell Food Group's (VTX:BELL) stock increased by 6.0% over the past three months. Given its impressive performance, we decided to study the company's key financial indicators as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. In this article, we decided to focus on Bell Food Group'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. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

See our latest analysis for Bell Food Group

How Is ROE Calculated?

ROE 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 Bell Food Group is:

9.2% = CHF134m ÷ CHF1.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. So, this means that for every CHF1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of CHF0.09.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. 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.

Bell Food Group's Earnings Growth And 9.2% ROE

To begin with, Bell Food Group seems to have a respectable ROE. Even so, when compared with the average industry ROE of 13%, we aren't very excited. However, the moderate 14% net income growth seen by Bell Food Group over the past five years is definitely a positive. So, there might be other aspects that are positively influencing earnings growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently. Bear in mind, the company does have a respectable level of ROE. It is just that the industry ROE is higher. So this also does lend some color to the fairly high earnings growth seen by the company.

As a next step, we compared Bell Food Group's net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 5.3%.

past-earnings-growth — SWX:BELL Past Earnings Growth October 1st 2023

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Has the market priced in the future outlook for BELL? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Bell Food Group Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Bell Food Group has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 34% (or a retention ratio of 66%) and a respectable amount of growth in earnings as we saw above, meaning that the company has been making efficient use of its profits.

Besides, Bell Food Group 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 31%. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 8.1%.

Summary

In total, we are pretty happy with Bell Food Group's performance. Specifically, we like that it has been reinvesting a high portion of its profits at a moderate rate of return, resulting in earnings expansion. With that said, on studying the latest analyst forecasts, we found that while the company has seen growth in its past earnings, analysts expect its future earnings to shrink. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

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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.