Clarify retained earnings? Describe importance of this?
Retained earnings represent the sum of all the earnings available to common stockholders of a business at the time of its entire history, minus the total of all the common stock dividends which it has ever paid. Those earnings which were not paid out were, by definition, retained.
Importance
Retained earnings are important because of the reason they represent amounts reinvested into a company in support of the company’s owners instead of being paid out in the form of dividends.