Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust's (SGX:C2PU) Stock Has Seen Strong Momentum: Does That Call For Deeper Study Of Its Financial Prospects?

Most readers would already be aware that Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust's (SGX:C2PU) stock increased significantly by 7.0% over the past month. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely to see if they had a hand to play in the recent price move. In this article, we decided to focus on Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust's ROE.

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.

View our latest analysis for Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust

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 Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust is:

2.9% = S$41m ÷ S$1.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2022).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. Another way to think of that is that for every SGD1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn SGD0.03 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

A Side By Side comparison of Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust's Earnings Growth And 2.9% ROE

It is hard to argue that Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust's ROE is much good in and of itself. Even compared to the average industry ROE of 7.0%, the company's ROE is quite dismal. However, the moderate 14% net income growth seen by Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust over the past five years is definitely a positive. We believe that there might 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 Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust'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 7.7%.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. 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. 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 Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust seems to be paying out most of its income as dividends judging by its three-year median payout ratio of 89%, meaning the company retains only 11% of its income. However, this is typical for REITs as they are often required by law to distribute most of their earnings. In spite of this, the company was able to grow its earnings by a fair bit, as we saw above.

Besides, Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. 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 100% of its profits over the next three years. However, Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust's ROE is predicted to rise to 5.5% despite there being no anticipated change in its payout ratio.

Summary

Overall, we feel that Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust certainly does have some positive factors to consider. 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. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings are expected to accelerate. 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.

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