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The Value Of A Company's Earning And Profitability

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QUESTION 1: RELATIVE PROFITABILITY
There are several ways to measure a company’s earning and profitability. Return on Equity (“ROE”) and Return on Assets (“ROA”) are, historically, among the most widely used measures to assess relative profitability in the banking industry. The technique used in this paper is based on Dr. Cole’s ROE Model. This model helps “demystify” ROE and ROA; and focuses and analyzes the main factors that are driving profitability for a bank. For this paper, selected financial data for East West Bank (“EWB” or the “Bank”) and its Peer Group (“peers”) was obtained from the December 31, 2013 Uniform Bank Performance Report (“UBPR”) and various EWB documents ; and from interviews conducted with EWB management . …show more content…

Thus, EWB’s Equity Multiplier (“EM”) is also higher than peers (10.09x vs. 8.88x).
EWB’s higher ROE compared to peers highlights a higher rate of return on shareholder’s equity; nonetheless, it does not provide the complete picture in itself. Decomposing the ROE to better understand the reason for change, it was determined that 42% of EWB’s 2013 ROE was due to leverage, i.e., lower relative equity.
Since ROA growth itself will not yield important insights, nine variables have been identified, reflecting variances (Bank vs. Peer) for each in Exhibit 1. The following four key drivers out of the nine have been examined below, to provide a more detailed picture:
1. PROFIT STRENGTHS (HIGHEST POSITIVE VARIANCE)
A. YIELD ON EARNING ASSET (“EA”)
Over the past 3 years, EWB’s yield on EA has decreased 66 bps from 2011 to 2013 (Exhibit 2). This is essentially owing to the “low interest rate environment” and the lower average yield on non-covered loans . EWB’s average yield is above peers (Exhibit 1), as EWB used funds more efficiently; placing a larger proportion of EA (82.47% vs. 68.63%) in higher yielding assets (i.e., Gross Loans and Fed Funds Sold & Resales); as illustrated in Exhibit 3. EWB’s higher yield on gross loans was attributable to the interest income from the “covered loans” portfolio, which is due to the additional accretion accounted for under ASC 310-30. As the covered loan balance continues to decrease, the overall yield will

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