G8 Education's (ASX:GEM) stock is up by 3.8% over the past three months. As most would know, long-term fundamentals have a strong correlation with market price movements, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. Particularly, we will be paying attention to G8 Education'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.

View our latest analysis for G8 Education

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

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 G8 Education is:

6.8% = AU$61m ÷ AU$902m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that for every A$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated A$0.07 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. 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.

G8 Education's Earnings Growth And 6.8% ROE

On the face of it, G8 Education's ROE is not much to talk about. However, its ROE is similar to the industry average of 6.8%, so we won't completely dismiss the company. Particularly, the exceptional 33% net income growth seen by G8 Education over the past five years is pretty remarkable. Taking into consideration that the ROE is not particularly high, we reckon that there could also be other factors at play which could be influencing the company's growth. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.

As a next step, we compared G8 Education'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 12%.

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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if G8 Education is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is G8 Education Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 67% (implying that it keeps only 33% of profits) for G8 Education suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of the earnings to its shareholders.

Additionally, G8 Education has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 59%. Still, forecasts suggest that G8 Education's future ROE will rise to 8.6% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like G8 Education has some positive aspects to its business. While no doubt its earnings growth is pretty substantial, we do feel that the reinvestment rate is pretty low, meaning, the earnings growth number could have been significantly higher had the company been retaining more of its profits. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

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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.