If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look for? Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. In light of that, when we looked at JB Foods (SGX:BEW) and its ROCE trend, we weren't exactly thrilled.

Understanding 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. The formula for this calculation on JB Foods is:

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

0.17 = US$37m ÷ (US$674m - US$461m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

So, JB Foods has an ROCE of 17%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Food industry average of 12% it's much better.

See our latest analysis for JB Foods

While the past is not representative of the future, it can be helpful to know how a company has performed historically, which is why we have this chart above. If you want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of JB Foods, check out these free graphs here.

How Are Returns Trending?

When we looked at the ROCE trend at JB Foods, we didn't gain much confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 29% over the last five years. Meanwhile, the business is utilizing more capital but this hasn't moved the needle much in terms of sales in the past 12 months, so this could reflect longer term investments. It's worth keeping an eye on the company's earnings from here on to see if these investments do end up contributing to the bottom line.

While on the subject, we noticed that the ratio of current liabilities to total assets has risen to 68%, which has impacted the ROCE. If current liabilities hadn't increased as much as they did, the ROCE could actually be even lower. What this means is that in reality, a rather large portion of the business is being funded by the likes of the company's suppliers or short-term creditors, which can bring some risks of its own.

Our Take On JB Foods' ROCE

Bringing it all together, while we're somewhat encouraged by JB Foods' reinvestment in its own business, we're aware that returns are shrinking. Additionally, the stock's total return to shareholders over the last five years has been flat, which isn't too surprising. In any case, the stock doesn't have these traits of a multi-bagger discussed above, so if that's what you're looking for, we think you'd have more luck elsewhere.