With its stock down 12% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard SiteOne Landscape Supply (NYSE:SITE). However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Particularly, we will be paying attention to SiteOne Landscape Supply'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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

ROE can be calculated by using the formula:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for SiteOne Landscape Supply is:

9.7% = US$155m ÷ US$1.6b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.10 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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 everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

SiteOne Landscape Supply's Earnings Growth And 9.7% ROE

On the face of it, SiteOne Landscape Supply's ROE is not much to talk about. Next, when compared to the average industry ROE of 16%, the company's ROE leaves us feeling even less enthusiastic. However, the moderate 16% net income growth seen by SiteOne Landscape Supply over the past five years is definitely a positive. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.

As a next step, we compared SiteOne Landscape Supply'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 25% in the same 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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is SiteOne Landscape Supply fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is SiteOne Landscape Supply Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

SiteOne Landscape Supply doesn't pay any regular dividends currently which essentially means that it has been reinvesting all of its profits into the business. This definitely contributes to the decent earnings growth number that we discussed above.

Conclusion

On the whole, we do feel that SiteOne Landscape Supply has some positive attributes. Namely, its respectable earnings growth, which it achieved due to it retaining most of its profits. However, given the low ROE, investors may not be benefitting from all that reinvestment after all. The latest industry analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to maintain its current growth rate. 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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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.