DFI Retail Group Holdings (SGX:D01) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 27% over the last three months. However, we decided to pay attention to the company's fundamentals which don't appear to give a clear sign about the company's financial health. In this article, we decided to focus on DFI Retail Group Holdings' ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

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 DFI Retail Group Holdings is:

13% = US$121m ÷ US$952m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.13 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. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. 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.

DFI Retail Group Holdings' Earnings Growth And 13% ROE

To start with, DFI Retail Group Holdings' ROE looks acceptable. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 4.8% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. For this reason, DFI Retail Group Holdings' five year net income decline of 43% raises the question as to why the high ROE didn't translate into earnings growth. Therefore, there might be some other aspects that could explain this. Such as, the company pays out a huge portion of its earnings as dividends, or is faced with competitive pressures.

That being said, we compared DFI Retail Group Holdings' performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 7.4% in the same 5-year period.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. If you're wondering about DFI Retail Group Holdings''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is DFI Retail Group Holdings Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

DFI Retail Group Holdings' very high three-year median payout ratio of 114% over the last three years suggests that the company is paying its shareholders more than what it is earning and this explains the company's shrinking earnings. Its usually very hard to sustain dividend payments that are higher than reported profits. To know the 2 risks we have identified for DFI Retail Group Holdings visit our risks dashboard for free.

Moreover, DFI Retail Group Holdings has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 67% over the next three years. The fact that the company's ROE is expected to rise to 22% over the same period is explained by the drop in the payout ratio.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by DFI Retail Group Holdings can be open to many interpretations. While the company does have a high rate of return, its low earnings retention is probably what's hampering its earnings growth. That being so, the latest industry analyst forecasts show that the analysts are expecting to see a huge improvement in the company's earnings growth rate. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.