Most readers would already be aware that Enerpac Tool Group's (NYSE:EPAC) stock increased significantly by 5.1% over the past month. Given the company's impressive performance, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely as a company's financial health over the long-term usually dictates market outcomes. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Enerpac Tool Group's ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

View our latest analysis for Enerpac Tool Group

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Enerpac Tool Group is:

22% = US$86m ÷ US$398m (Based on the trailing twelve months to November 2024).

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

What Has ROE Got To Do With 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. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Enerpac Tool Group's Earnings Growth And 22% ROE

To begin with, Enerpac Tool Group seems to have a respectable ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 15% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. This certainly adds some context to Enerpac Tool Group's exceptional 36% net income growth seen over the past five years. However, there could also be other causes behind this growth. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.

We then compared Enerpac Tool Group's net income growth with the industry and we're pleased to see that the company's growth figure is higher when compared with the industry which has a growth rate of 15% in the same 5-year period.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. What is EPAC worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether EPAC is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Enerpac Tool Group Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

Enerpac Tool Group has a really low three-year median payout ratio of 5.6%, meaning that it has the remaining 94% left over to reinvest into its business. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business as evidenced by the growth seen by the company.

Additionally, Enerpac Tool Group 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

In total, we are pretty happy with Enerpac Tool Group's performance. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. That being so, a study of the latest analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to see a slowdown in its future earnings growth. 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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