Is Crest Nicholson Holdings plc's (LON:CRST) Stock Price Struggling As A Result Of Its Mixed Financials?

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With its stock down 16% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Crest Nicholson Holdings (LON:CRST). We, however decided to study the company's financials to determine if they have got anything to do with the price decline. Long-term fundamentals are usually what drive market outcomes, so it's worth paying close attention. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Crest Nicholson Holdings' ROE today.

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. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

See our latest analysis for Crest Nicholson Holdings

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for return on equity is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Crest Nicholson Holdings is:

6.8% = UK£59m ÷ UK£869m (Based on the trailing twelve months to April 2021).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. That means that for every £1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated £0.07 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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. 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.

Crest Nicholson Holdings' Earnings Growth And 6.8% ROE

On the face of it, Crest Nicholson Holdings' ROE is not much to talk about. We then compared the company's ROE to the broader industry and were disappointed to see that the ROE is lower than the industry average of 12%. Therefore, it might not be wrong to say that the five year net income decline of 31% seen by Crest Nicholson Holdings was probably the result of it having a lower ROE. We believe that there also might be other aspects that are negatively influencing the company's earnings prospects. For instance, the company has a very high payout ratio, or is faced with competitive pressures.

Next, when we compared with the industry, which has shrunk its earnings at a rate of 6.7% in the same period, we still found Crest Nicholson Holdings' performance to be quite bleak, because the company has been shrinking its earnings faster than the industry.