Medibank Private's (ASX:MPL) stock up by 4.2% over the past month. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to investigate if the company's decent financials had a hand to play in the recent price move. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Medibank Private's ROE today.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

See our latest analysis for Medibank Private

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 Medibank Private is:

22% = AU$496m ÷ AU$2.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every A$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of A$0.22.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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. 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.

Medibank Private's Earnings Growth And 22% ROE

At first glance, Medibank Private seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 12%. This probably laid the ground for Medibank Private's moderate 5.5% net income growth seen over the past five years.

As a next step, we compared Medibank Private's net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 20% in the same period.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. 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. What is MPL worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether MPL is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Medibank Private Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

While Medibank Private has a three-year median payout ratio of 90% (which means it retains 9.6% of profits), the company has still seen a fair bit of earnings growth in the past, meaning that its high payout ratio hasn't hampered its ability to grow.

Additionally, Medibank Private has paid dividends over a period of nine 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 81%. Accordingly, forecasts suggest that Medibank Private's future ROE will be 24% which is again, similar to the current ROE.

Conclusion

Overall, we feel that Medibank Private certainly does have some positive factors to consider. As noted earlier, its earnings growth has been quite decent, and the high ROE does contribute to that growth. Still, the company invests little to almost none of its profits. This could potentially reduce the odds that the company continues to see the same level of growth in the future. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. 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.