DRDGOLD (NYSE:DRD) has had a rough month with its share price down 23%. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company's financial performance over the long term, which in this case looks quite promising. Particularly, we will be paying attention to DRDGOLD'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. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

Check out our latest analysis for DRDGOLD

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 DRDGOLD is:

20% = R1.3b ÷ R6.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.20 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.

DRDGOLD's Earnings Growth And 20% ROE

To begin with, DRDGOLD seems to have a respectable ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 12% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. This certainly adds some context to DRDGOLD's exceptional 39% net income growth seen over the past five years. We believe that there might also be other aspects that are positively influencing the company's earnings growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.

As a next step, we compared DRDGOLD'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 27%.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. 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. If you're wondering about DRDGOLD's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is DRDGOLD Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

DRDGOLD's significant three-year median payout ratio of 51% (where it is retaining only 49% of its income) suggests that the company has been able to achieve a high growth in earnings despite returning most of its income to shareholders.

Additionally, DRDGOLD 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.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with DRDGOLD's performance. Especially the high ROE, Which has contributed to the impressive growth seen in earnings. Despite the company reinvesting only a small portion of its profits, it still has managed to grow its earnings so that is appreciable. Until now, we have only just grazed the surface of the company's past performance by looking at the company's fundamentals. You can do your own research on DRDGOLD and see how it has performed in the past by looking at this FREE detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flows.

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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.