Most readers would already be aware that H2O Innovation's (TSE:HEO) stock increased significantly by 28% over the past month. As most would know, fundamentals are what usually guide market price movements over the long-term, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. Specifically, we decided to study H2O Innovation's ROE in this article.
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 short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
See our latest analysis for H2O Innovation
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 H2O Innovation is:
4.4% = CA$4.5m ÷ CA$102m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2022).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every CA$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated CA$0.04 in profit.
Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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 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.
H2O Innovation's Earnings Growth And 4.4% ROE
On the face of it, H2O Innovation's ROE is not much to talk about. However, given that the company's ROE is similar to the average industry ROE of 4.7%, we may spare it some thought. Moreover, we are quite pleased to see that H2O Innovation's net income grew significantly at a rate of 58% over the last five years. Considering the moderately low ROE, it is quite possible that there might be some other aspects that are positively influencing the company's earnings growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.
We then compared H2O Innovation's net income growth with the industry and we're pleased to see that the company's growth figure is higher when compared with the industry which has a growth rate of 21% in the same period.