COSCO SHIPPING Holdings' (HKG:1919) stock is up by a considerable 15% over the past 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 COSCO SHIPPING Holdings' ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

Check out our latest analysis for COSCO SHIPPING Holdings

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for COSCO SHIPPING Holdings is:

17% = CN¥46b ÷ CN¥271b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. Another way to think of that is that for every HK$1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn HK$0.17 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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.

COSCO SHIPPING Holdings' Earnings Growth And 17% ROE

To start with, COSCO SHIPPING Holdings' ROE looks acceptable. Especially when compared to the industry average of 7.9% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. Probably as a result of this, COSCO SHIPPING Holdings was able to see a decent growth of 19% over the last five years.

We then performed a comparison between COSCO SHIPPING Holdings' net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 19% in the same 5-year period.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about COSCO SHIPPING Holdings''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is COSCO SHIPPING Holdings Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

COSCO SHIPPING Holdings has a three-year median payout ratio of 50%, which implies that it retains the remaining 50% of its profits. This suggests that its dividend is well covered, and given the decent growth seen by the company, it looks like management is reinvesting its earnings efficiently.

Additionally, COSCO SHIPPING Holdings has paid dividends over a period of three years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Based on the latest analysts' estimates, we found that the company's future payout ratio over the next three years is expected to hold steady at 48%. Regardless, COSCO SHIPPING Holdings' ROE is speculated to decline to 7.8% despite there being no anticipated change in its payout ratio.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that COSCO SHIPPING Holdings' performance has been quite good. In particular, it's great to see that the company is investing heavily into its business and along with a high rate of return, that has resulted in a sizeable 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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