It is hard to get excited after looking at Danaher's (NYSE:DHR) recent performance, when its stock has declined 12% over the past three months. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. Specifically, we decided to study Danaher's ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

View our latest analysis for Danaher

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

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 Danaher is:

7.9% = US$3.9b ÷ US$50b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every $1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of $0.08.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Danaher's Earnings Growth And 7.9% ROE

When you first look at it, Danaher's ROE doesn't look that attractive. However, given that the company's ROE is similar to the average industry ROE of 9.7%, we may spare it some thought. Even so, Danaher has shown a fairly decent growth in its net income which grew at a rate of 5.5%. Considering the moderately low ROE, it is quite possible that there might be some other aspects that are positively influencing the company's earnings growth. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place.

As a next step, we compared Danaher'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 7.6% in the same period.

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. What is DHR worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether DHR is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Danaher Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

In Danaher's case, its respectable earnings growth can probably be explained by its low three-year median payout ratio of 15% (or a retention ratio of 85%), which suggests that the company is investing most of its profits to grow its business.

Moreover, Danaher 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. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 14%. Regardless, the future ROE for Danaher is predicted to rise to 11% despite there being not much change expected in its payout ratio.

Summary

On the whole, we do feel that Danaher has some positive attributes. Specifically, its fairly high earnings growth number, which no doubt was backed by the company's high earnings retention. Still, the low ROE means that all that reinvestment is not reaping a lot of benefit to the investors. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings are expected to accelerate. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

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