One of the best investments we can make is in our own knowledge and skill set. With that in mind, this article will work through how we can use Return On Equity $(ROE)$ to better understand a business. By way of learning-by-doing, we'll look at ROE to gain a better understanding of Thai Beverage Public Company Limited (SGX:Y92).

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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Trump has pledged to "unleash" American oil and gas and these 15 US stocks have developments that are poised to benefit.

Advertisement

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 Thai Beverage is:

13% = ฿31b ÷ ฿229b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every SGD1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated SGD0.13 in profit.

See our latest analysis for Thai Beverage

Does Thai Beverage Have A Good ROE?

Arguably the easiest way to assess company's ROE is to compare it with the average in its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. The image below shows that Thai Beverage has an ROE that is roughly in line with the Beverage industry average (11%).

SGX:Y92 Return on Equity April 11th 2025

So while the ROE is not exceptional, at least its acceptable. Although the ROE is similar to the industry, we should still perform further checks to see if the company's ROE is being boosted by high debt levels. If so, this increases its exposure to financial risk. To know the 2 risks we have identified for Thai Beverage visit our risks dashboard for free.

How Does Debt Impact Return On Equity?

Companies usually need to invest money to grow their profits. That cash can come from issuing shares, retained earnings, or debt. In the first two cases, the ROE will capture this use of capital to grow. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but won't affect the total equity. In this manner the use of debt will boost ROE, even though the core economics of the business stay the same.

Thai Beverage's Debt And Its 13% ROE

It's worth noting the high use of debt by Thai Beverage, leading to its debt to equity ratio of 1.02. There's no doubt its ROE is decent, but the very high debt the company carries is not too exciting to see. Debt does bring extra risk, so it's only really worthwhile when a company generates some decent returns from it.

Conclusion

Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. A company that can achieve a high return on equity without debt could be considered a high quality business. If two companies have around the same level of debt to equity, and one has a higher ROE, I'd generally prefer the one with higher ROE.

Having said that, while ROE is a useful indicator of business quality, you'll have to look at a whole range of factors to determine the right price to buy a stock. The rate at which profits are likely to grow, relative to the expectations of profit growth reflected in the current price, must be considered, too. So you might want to check this FREE visualization of analyst forecasts for the company .

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.