If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. Speaking of which, we noticed some great changes in IOG's (LON:IOG) returns on capital, so let's have a look.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on IOG is:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.094 = UK£14m ÷ (UK£204m - UK£52m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).

So, IOG has an ROCE of 9.4%. On its own, that's a low figure but it's around the 11% average generated by the Oil and Gas industry.

Check out our latest analysis for IOG

Above you can see how the current ROCE for IOG compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering IOG here for free.

The Trend Of ROCE

IOG has recently broken into profitability so their prior investments seem to be paying off. Shareholders would no doubt be pleased with this because the business was loss-making five years ago but is is now generating 9.4% on its capital. In addition to that, IOG is employing 1,429% more capital than previously which is expected of a company that's trying to break into profitability. This can indicate that there's plenty of opportunities to invest capital internally and at ever higher rates, both common traits of a multi-bagger.

On a related note, the company's ratio of current liabilities to total assets has decreased to 25%, which basically reduces it's funding from the likes of short-term creditors or suppliers. This tells us that IOG has grown its returns without a reliance on increasing their current liabilities, which we're very happy with.

Our Take On IOG's ROCE

Overall, IOG gets a big tick from us thanks in most part to the fact that it is now profitable and is reinvesting in its business. Astute investors may have an opportunity here because the stock has declined 54% in the last five years. So researching this company further and determining whether or not these trends will continue seems justified.