Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE:PKG) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 14% over the last three months. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely to see if they had a hand to play in the recent price move. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Packaging Corporation of America'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 Is ROE Calculated?

The formula for return on equity is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Packaging Corporation of America is:

19% = US$773m ÷ US$4.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

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 $0.19 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. 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.

Packaging Corporation of America's Earnings Growth And 19% ROE

To start with, Packaging Corporation of America's ROE looks acceptable. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 13%. Probably as a result of this, Packaging Corporation of America was able to see a decent growth of 7.1% over the last five years.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Packaging Corporation of America's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 9.5% over the last few years, which is not something we like to see.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. What is PKG worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether PKG is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Packaging Corporation of America Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 51% (or a retention ratio of 49%) for Packaging Corporation of America suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of its income to its shareholders.

Moreover, Packaging Corporation of America is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Based on the latest analysts' estimates, we found that the company's future payout ratio over the next three years is expected to hold steady at 44%. As a result, Packaging Corporation of America's ROE is not expected to change by much either, which we inferred from the analyst estimate of 19% for future ROE.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Packaging Corporation of America has some positive aspects to its business. The company has grown its earnings moderately as previously discussed. Still, the high ROE could have been even more beneficial to investors had the company been reinvesting more of its profits. As highlighted earlier, the current reinvestment rate appears to be quite low. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings are expected to accelerate. 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.