It is hard to get excited after looking at LyondellBasell Industries' (NYSE:LYB) recent performance, when its stock has declined 11% over the past month. However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Specifically, we decided to study LyondellBasell Industries' ROE in this article.
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors' money. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.
See our latest analysis for LyondellBasell Industries
How To 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 LyondellBasell Industries is:
31% = US$3.9b ÷ US$13b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2022).
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 $0.31 in profit.
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. 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 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 LyondellBasell Industries' Earnings Growth And 31% ROE
Firstly, we acknowledge that LyondellBasell Industries has a significantly high ROE. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 16% which is quite remarkable. Needless to say, we are quite surprised to see that LyondellBasell Industries' net income shrunk at a rate of 2.2% over the past five years. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven't been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering the company's growth. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.
However, when we compared LyondellBasell Industries' growth with the industry we found that while the company's earnings have been shrinking, the industry has seen an earnings growth of 13% in the same period. This is quite worrisome.
NYSE:LYB Past Earnings Growth March 12th 2023
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. It's important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Is LYB fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.
Is LyondellBasell Industries Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Despite having a normal three-year median payout ratio of 40% (where it is retaining 60% of its profits), LyondellBasell Industries has seen a decline in earnings as we saw above. It looks like there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.
Moreover, LyondellBasell Industries has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 43%. Accordingly, forecasts suggest that LyondellBasell Industries' future ROE will be 25% which is again, similar to the current ROE.
Summary
On the whole, we do feel that LyondellBasell Industries has some positive attributes. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a high ROE and and a high reinvestment rate. We believe that there might be some outside factors that could be having a negative impact on the business. With that said, we studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that while the company has shrunk its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to grow in the future. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.
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