Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount of capital employed. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. So on that note, PolyNovo (ASX:PNV) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.

What is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

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. To calculate this metric for PolyNovo, this is the formula:

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

0.033 = AU$905k ÷ (AU$37m - AU$9.0m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021).

Therefore, PolyNovo has an ROCE of 3.3%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Medical Equipment industry average of 12%.

See our latest analysis for PolyNovo

In the above chart we have measured PolyNovo's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for PolyNovo.

The Trend Of ROCE

PolyNovo 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 3.3% on its capital. And unsurprisingly, like most companies trying to break into the black, PolyNovo is utilizing 98% more capital than it was five years ago. We like this trend, because it tells us the company has profitable reinvestment opportunities available to it, and if it continues going forward that can lead to a multi-bagger performance.

For the record though, there was a noticeable increase in the company's current liabilities over the period, so we would attribute some of the ROCE growth to that. The current liabilities has increased to 24% of total assets, so the business is now more funded by the likes of its suppliers or short-term creditors. It's worth keeping an eye on this because as the percentage of current liabilities to total assets increases, some aspects of risk also increase.

What We Can Learn From PolyNovo's ROCE

To the delight of most shareholders, PolyNovo has now broken into profitability. And with the stock having performed exceptionally well over the last five years, these patterns are being accounted for by investors. Therefore, we think it would be worth your time to check if these trends are going to continue.