Should Weakness in AppAsia Berhad's (KLSE:APPASIA) Stock Be Seen As A Sign That Market Will Correct The Share Price Given Decent Financials?

Yahoo

11-04-2025

With its stock down 19% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard AppAsia Berhad (KLSE:APPASIA). However, stock prices are usually driven by a company's financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. In this article, we decided to focus on AppAsia Berhad'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.
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ROE 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 AppAsia Berhad is:
7.2% = RM2.9m ÷ RM40m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).
The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every MYR1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn MYR0.07 in profit.
View our latest analysis for AppAsia Berhad
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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don't share these attributes.
At first glance, AppAsia Berhad's ROE doesn't look very promising. We then compared the company's ROE to the broader industry and were disappointed to see that the ROE is lower than the industry average of 15%. In spite of this, AppAsia Berhad was able to grow its net income considerably, at a rate of 57% in the last five years. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. 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.
As a next step, we compared AppAsia Berhad's net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 19%.
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 AppAsia Berhad is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E , relative to its industry.
Given that AppAsia Berhad doesn't pay any regular dividends to its shareholders, we infer that the company has been reinvesting all of its profits to grow its business.
On the whole, we do feel that AppAsia Berhad has some positive attributes. With a high rate of reinvestment, albeit at a low ROE, the company has managed to see a considerable growth in its earnings. While we won't completely dismiss the company, what we would do, is try to ascertain how risky the business is to make a more informed decision around the company. To know the 4 risks we have identified for AppAsia Berhad visit our risks dashboard for free.
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