Bio-Techne Corporation's (NASDAQ:TECH) Stock Is Going Strong: Is the Market Following Fundamentals?

Bio-Techne (NASDAQ:TECH) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 13% over the last three months. 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. In this article, we decided to focus on Bio-Techne's ROE.

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.

View our latest analysis for Bio-Techne

How Is ROE Calculated?

Return on equity 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 Bio-Techne is:

14% = US$187m ÷ US$1.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2020).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.14 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 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.

Bio-Techne's Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

At first glance, Bio-Techne seems to have a decent ROE. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 14%. This certainly adds some context to Bio-Techne's moderate 8.7% net income growth seen over the past five years.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Bio-Techne's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 12% in the same period, which is not something we like to see.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Bio-Techne is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Bio-Techne Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

With a three-year median payout ratio of 43% (implying that the company retains 57% of its profits), it seems that Bio-Techne is reinvesting efficiently in a way that it sees respectable amount growth in its earnings and pays a dividend that's well covered.

Besides, Bio-Techne has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 19% over the next three years. Despite the lower expected payout ratio, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with Bio-Techne's performance. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business, and at a high rate of return. As a result, the decent growth in its earnings is not surprising. Having said that, on studying current analyst estimates, we were concerned to see that while the company has grown its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to shrink 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.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.

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