With its stock down 16% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard GDI Integrated Facility Services (TSE:GDI). However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Specifically, we decided to study GDI Integrated Facility Services' ROE in this article.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

View our latest analysis for GDI Integrated Facility Services

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 GDI Integrated Facility Services is:

3.3% = CA$15m ÷ CA$455m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every CA$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated CA$0.03 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.

GDI Integrated Facility Services' Earnings Growth And 3.3% ROE

It is quite clear that GDI Integrated Facility Services' ROE is rather low. Even compared to the average industry ROE of 9.3%, the company's ROE is quite dismal. However, the moderate 7.9% net income growth seen by GDI Integrated Facility Services over the past five years is definitely a positive. Therefore, the growth in earnings could probably have been caused by other variables. For example, it is possible that the company's management has made some good strategic decisions, or that the company has a low payout ratio.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that GDI Integrated Facility Services' reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 14% over the last few years, which is not something we like to see.

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. If you're wondering about GDI Integrated Facility Services''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.