What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? One common approach is to try and find a company with returns on capital employed (ROCE) that are increasing, in conjunction with a growing amount of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. So when we looked at Progen Holdings (Catalist:583) and its trend of ROCE, we really liked what we saw.

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

Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Progen Holdings:

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

0.0089 = S$259k ÷ (S$33m - S$4.0m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

Thus, Progen Holdings has an ROCE of 0.9%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Construction industry average of 5.3%.

See our latest analysis for Progen Holdings

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Progen Holdings' ROCE against it's prior returns. If you're interested in investigating Progen Holdings' past further, check out this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

How Are Returns Trending?

Shareholders will be relieved that Progen Holdings has broken into profitability. The company now earns 0.9% on its capital, because five years ago it was incurring losses. While returns have increased, the amount of capital employed by Progen Holdings has remained flat over the period. With no noticeable increase in capital employed, it's worth knowing what the company plans on doing going forward in regards to reinvesting and growing the business. After all, a company can only become a long term multi-bagger if it continually reinvests in itself at high rates of return.

The Key Takeaway

In summary, we're delighted to see that Progen Holdings has been able to increase efficiencies and earn higher rates of return on the same amount of capital. And since the stock has fallen 39% over the last five years, there might be an opportunity here. So researching this company further and determining whether or not these trends will continue seems justified.

If you want to know some of the risks facing Progen Holdings we've found 4 warning signs (1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) that you should be aware of before investing here.