It is hard to get excited after looking at Petra Energy Berhad's (KLSE:PENERGY) recent performance, when its stock has declined 16% over the past three months. However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. In this article, we decided to focus on Petra Energy Berhad's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

Check out our latest analysis for Petra Energy Berhad

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Petra Energy Berhad is:

16% = RM70m ÷ RM422m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every MYR1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated MYR0.16 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Petra Energy Berhad's Earnings Growth And 16% ROE

At first glance, Petra Energy Berhad seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 17%. This probably goes some way in explaining Petra Energy Berhad's moderate 6.7% growth over the past five years amongst other factors.

As a next step, we compared Petra Energy Berhad'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 28% in the same period.

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). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is Petra Energy Berhad fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is Petra Energy Berhad Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 58% (or a retention ratio of 42%) for Petra Energy Berhad suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of its income to its shareholders.

Moreover, Petra Energy Berhad 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.

Summary

In total, it does look like Petra Energy Berhad 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. Until now, we have only just grazed the surface of the company's past performance by looking at the company's fundamentals. You can do your own research on Petra Energy Berhad and see how it has performed in the past by looking at this FREE detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flows.

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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.