Mr Price Group Limited's (JSE:MRP) Fundamentals Look Pretty Strong: Could The Market Be Wrong About The Stock?

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26-07-2025

Mr Price Group (JSE:MRP) has had a rough three months with its share price down 14%. However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Mr Price Group's ROE today.
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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How Do You 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 Mr Price Group is:
26% = R3.8b ÷ R14b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2025).
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that for every ZAR1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated ZAR0.26 in profit.
See our latest analysis for Mr Price Group
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 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.
Mr Price Group's Earnings Growth And 26% ROE
At first glance, Mr Price Group seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 15%. Probably as a result of this, Mr Price Group was able to see a decent growth of 6.1% over the last five years.
We then compared Mr Price Group's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 11% in the same 5-year period, which is a bit concerning.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. 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. Is Mr Price Group fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.
Is Mr Price Group Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Mr Price Group has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 63%, meaning that it is left with only 37% to reinvest into its business. This implies that the company has been able to achieve decent earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.
Besides, Mr Price Group has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Based on the latest analysts' estimates, we found that the company's future payout ratio over the next three years is expected to hold steady at 66%. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 29%.
Conclusion
In total, it does look like Mr Price Group has some positive aspects to its business. Its earnings have grown respectably as we saw earlier, which was likely due to the company reinvesting its earnings at a pretty high rate of return. However, given the high ROE, we do think that the company is reinvesting a small portion of its profits. This could likely be preventing the company from growing to its full extent. That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.
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