Declining Stock and Solid Fundamentals: Is The Market Wrong About Afentra plc (LON:AET)?

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It is hard to get excited after looking at Afentra's (LON:AET) recent performance, when its stock has declined 15% over the past month. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financial performance over the long term, which in this case looks quite promising. In this article, we decided to focus on Afentra's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Check out our latest analysis for Afentra

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

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 Afentra is:

33% = US$23m ÷ US$70m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each £1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made £0.33 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. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Afentra's Earnings Growth And 33% ROE

To begin with, Afentra has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Secondly, even when compared to the industry average of 9.2% the company's ROE is quite impressive. Probably as a result of this, Afentra was able to see a decent net income growth of 17% over the last five years.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Afentra's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 23% over the last few years, which is not something we like to see.

past-earnings-growth
AIM:AET Past Earnings Growth February 21st 2025

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. If you're wondering about Afentra's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.