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It is hard to get excited after looking at Union Jack Oil's (LON:UJO) recent performance, when its stock has declined 25% over the past three months. But if you pay close attention, you might find that its key financial indicators look quite decent, which could mean that the stock could potentially rise in the long-term given how markets usually reward more resilient long-term fundamentals. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Union Jack Oil's ROE today.
Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.
See our latest analysis for Union Jack Oil
How Do You 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 Union Jack Oil is:
3.9% = UK£859k ÷ UK£22m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).
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 £0.04 in profit.
Why Is ROE Important For 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. 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.
Union Jack Oil's Earnings Growth And 3.9% ROE
It is quite clear that Union Jack Oil's ROE is rather low. Not just that, even compared to the industry average of 9.2%, the company's ROE is entirely unremarkable. However, we we're pleasantly surprised to see that Union Jack Oil grew its net income at a significant rate of 54% in the last five years. We believe that there might be 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.
As a next step, we compared Union Jack Oil'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 26%.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. If you're wondering about Union Jack Oil's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.