Are Robust Financials Driving The Recent Rally In Bucher Industries AG's (VTX:BUCN) Stock?

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

Tue, Nov 21, 2023, 9:42 PM 4 min read

Bucher Industries (VTX:BUCN) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 8.0% over the last month. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Bucher Industries' ROE today.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

View our latest analysis for Bucher Industries

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 Bucher Industries is:

22% = CHF380m ÷ CHF1.7b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every CHF1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated CHF0.22 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With 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 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.

Bucher Industries' Earnings Growth And 22% ROE

First thing first, we like that Bucher Industries has an impressive ROE. Secondly, even when compared to the industry average of 18% the company's ROE is quite impressive. Probably as a result of this, Bucher Industries was able to see a decent net income growth of 12% over the last five years.

As a next step, we compared Bucher Industries' 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 3.6%.

past-earnings-growth — SWX:BUCN Past Earnings Growth November 22nd 2023

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is BUCN fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.

Is Bucher Industries Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Bucher Industries has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 36% (or a retention ratio of 64%) 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, Bucher Industries 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 is expected to rise to 53% over the next three years. Therefore, the expected rise in the payout ratio explains why the company's ROE is expected to decline to 12% over the same period.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with Bucher Industries' performance. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. Having said that, on studying current analyst estimates, we were concerned to see that while the company has grown its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to shrink in the future. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.

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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.