Autoliv, Inc. (NYSE:ALV) Stock Has Shown Weakness Lately But Financials Look Strong: Should Prospective Shareholders Make The Leap?

Autoliv Inc. -0.75%

Autoliv Inc.

ALV

98.84

-0.75%

Autoliv (NYSE:ALV) has had a rough three months with its share price down 5.0%. But if you pay close attention, you might gather that its strong financials could mean that the stock could potentially see an increase in value in the long-term, given how markets usually reward companies with good financial health. Specifically, we decided to study Autoliv's 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. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

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 Autoliv is:

27% = US$631m ÷ US$2.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn $0.27 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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.

Autoliv's Earnings Growth And 27% ROE

Firstly, we acknowledge that Autoliv has a significantly high ROE. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 10% which is quite remarkable. This likely paved the way for the modest 15% net income growth seen by Autoliv over the past five years.

We then performed a comparison between Autoliv's net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 16% in the same 5-year period.

past-earnings-growth
NYSE:ALV Past Earnings Growth October 31st 2024

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Has the market priced in the future outlook for ALV? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Autoliv Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 53% (or a retention ratio of 47%) for Autoliv suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of its income to its shareholders.

Besides, Autoliv 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 23% over the next three years. Despite the lower expected payout ratio, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much.

Summary

In total, we are pretty happy with Autoliv's performance. Especially the high ROE, Which has contributed to the impressive growth seen in earnings. Despite the company reinvesting only a small portion of its profits, it still has managed to grow its earnings so that is appreciable. On studying current analyst estimates, we found that analysts expect the company to continue its recent growth streak. 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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