With A Return On Equity Of 10%, Has Crawford & Company's (NYSE:CRD.B) Management Done Well?
With A Return On Equity Of 10%, Has Crawford & Company's (NYSE:CRD.B) Management Done Well?
While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. To keep the lesson grounded in practicality, we'll use ROE to better understand Crawford & Company (NYSE:CRD.B).
儘管一些投資者已經精通財務指標（帽子提示），但本文適用於那些想了解股本回報率（ROE）及其重要性的人。爲了使課程以實用爲基礎，我們將使用投資回報率來更好地了解克勞福德公司（紐約證券交易所代碼：CRD.B）。
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors' money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
股本回報率或投資回報率是對公司增值和管理投資者資金的有效性的考驗。簡而言之，它衡量公司相對於股東權益的盈利能力。
How Is ROE Calculated?
ROE 是如何計算的？
The formula for return on equity is:
股本回報率的公式是：
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
股本回報率 = 淨利潤（來自持續經營業務）÷ 股東權益
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Crawford is:
因此，根據上述公式，克勞福德的投資回報率爲：
10% = US$17m ÷ US$163m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).
10% = 1700萬美元 ÷ 1.63億美元（基於截至2023年9月的過去十二個月）。
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.10 in profit.
“回報” 是過去十二個月的利潤。這意味着，每獲得價值1美元的股東權益，公司就會產生0.10美元的利潤。
Does Crawford Have A Good ROE?
克勞福德的投資回報率不錯嗎？
One simple way to determine if a company has a good return on equity is to compare it to the average for its industry. The limitation of this approach is that some companies are quite different from others, even within the same industry classification. You can see in the graphic below that Crawford has an ROE that is fairly close to the average for the Insurance industry (13%).
確定公司股本回報率是否不錯的一種簡單方法是將其與該行業的平均水平進行比較。這種方法的侷限性在於，有些公司與其他公司有很大不同，即使在相同的行業分類中也是如此。你可以在下圖中看到，克勞福德的投資回報率與保險行業的平均水平（13％）相當接近。
That's neither particularly good, nor bad. Even if the ROE is respectable when compared to the industry, its worth checking if the firm's ROE is being aided by high debt levels. If true, then it is more an indication of risk than the potential. To know the 2 risks we have identified for Crawford visit our risks dashboard for free.
這既不是特別好，也不是特別糟糕。即使與行業相比，投資回報率可觀，也值得檢查一下公司的投資回報率是否受到高額債務水平的支撐。如果屬實，則與其說是潛在風險，不如說是風險。要了解我們爲克勞福德確定的兩種風險，請免費訪問我們的風險儀表板。
Why You Should Consider Debt When Looking At ROE
爲什麼在考慮投資回報率時應該考慮債務
Companies usually need to invest money to grow their profits. That cash can come from issuing shares, retained earnings, or debt. In the first two cases, the ROE will capture this use of capital to grow. In the latter case, the use of debt will improve the returns, but will not change the equity. In this manner the use of debt will boost ROE, even though the core economics of the business stay the same.
公司通常需要投資資金來增加利潤。這些現金可以來自發行股票、留存收益或債務。在前兩個案例中，投資回報率將涵蓋這種資本用於增長的用途。在後一種情況下，債務的使用將提高回報，但不會改變股權。以這種方式，債務的使用將提高投資回報率，儘管該業務的核心經濟學保持不變。
Crawford's Debt And Its 10% ROE
克勞福德的債務及其10％的投資回報率
Crawford clearly uses a high amount of debt to boost returns, as it has a debt to equity ratio of 1.34. Its ROE is quite low, even with the use of significant debt; that's not a good result, in our opinion. Debt does bring extra risk, so it's only really worthwhile when a company generates some decent returns from it.
克勞福德顯然使用大量債務來提高回報，因爲其債務與權益比率爲1.34。即使使用了巨額債務，其投資回報率也相當低；在我們看來，這不是一個好結果。債務確實會帶來額外的風險，因此只有當公司從中獲得可觀的回報時，債務才是真正值得的。
Summary
摘要
Return on equity is one way we can compare its business quality of different companies. Companies that can achieve high returns on equity without too much debt are generally of good quality. If two companies have around the same level of debt to equity, and one has a higher ROE, I'd generally prefer the one with higher ROE.
股本回報率是我們可以比較不同公司的業務質量的一種方式。能夠在不負債過多的情況下獲得高股本回報的公司通常質量很好。如果兩家公司的債務與股權比率大致相同，而一家公司的投資回報率更高，那麼我通常更喜歡投資回報率更高的那家公司。
But when a business is high quality, the market often bids it up to a price that reflects this. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth -- and how much investment is required going forward. So you might want to check this FREE visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.
但是，當企業質量很高時，市場通常會以反映這一點的價格出價。重要的是要考慮其他因素，例如未來的利潤增長，以及未來需要多少投資。因此，您可能需要查看該公司的分析師預測的免費可視化效果。
Of course Crawford may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have high ROE and low debt.
當然，克勞福德可能不是最值得購買的股票。因此，您不妨免費查看其他投資回報率高、負債率低的公司的名單。
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Simply Wall St的這篇文章本質上是籠統的。我們僅使用公正的方法根據歷史數據和分析師的預測提供評論，我們的文章無意作爲財務建議。它不構成買入或賣出任何股票的建議，也沒有考慮到您的目標或財務狀況。我們的目標是爲您提供由基本數據驅動的長期重點分析。請注意，我們的分析可能不考慮最新的價格敏感型公司公告或定性材料。簡而言之，華爾街沒有持有任何上述股票的頭寸。
譯文內容由第三人軟體翻譯。