Cadre Holdings (NYSE:CDRE) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 5.1% over the last week. Since the market usually pay for a company's long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company's key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. Specifically, we decided to study Cadre Holdings' ROE in this article.

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. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

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 Cadre Holdings is:

11% = US$33m ÷ US$300m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.11 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. 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 Cadre Holdings' Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

At first glance, Cadre Holdings seems to have a decent ROE. Even when compared to the industry average of 12% the company's ROE looks quite decent. This probably goes some way in explaining Cadre Holdings' moderate 19% growth over the past five years amongst other factors.

As a next step, we compared Cadre Holdings' 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 8.9%.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. If you're wondering about Cadre Holdings''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Cadre Holdings Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Cadre Holdings has a three-year median payout ratio of 33%, which implies that it retains the remaining 67% of its profits. This suggests that its dividend is well covered, and given the decent growth seen by the company, it looks like management is reinvesting its earnings efficiently.

Additionally, Cadre Holdings has paid dividends over a period of three years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Existing analyst estimates suggest that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 23% over the next three years.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that Cadre Holdings' performance has been quite good. In particular, it's great to see that the company is investing heavily into its business and along with a high rate of return, that has resulted in a sizeable growth in its earnings. That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. 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.