With its stock down 11% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard 3SBio (HKG:1530). But if you pay close attention, you might gather that its strong financials could mean that the stock could potentially see an increase in value in the long-term, given how markets usually reward companies with good financial health. Particularly, we will be paying attention to 3SBio'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.

Check out our latest analysis for 3SBio

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

Return on equity 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 3SBio is:

12% = CN¥1.7b ÷ CN¥14b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each HK$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made HK$0.12 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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.

A Side By Side comparison of 3SBio's Earnings Growth And 12% ROE

At first glance, 3SBio seems to have a decent ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 7.9% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. This probably laid the ground for 3SBio's moderate 9.7% net income growth seen over the past five years.

As a next step, we compared 3SBio's net income growth with the industry and found that the company has a similar growth figure when compared with the industry average growth rate of 12% in the same 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. Is 3SBio fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is 3SBio Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

3SBio has a low three-year median payout ratio of 25%, meaning that the company retains the remaining 75% of its profits. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business.

Besides, 3SBio has been paying dividends over a period of five years. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 22% of its profits over the next three years. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 10%.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with 3SBio's performance. 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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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.