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. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. So when we looked at Xponential Fitness (NYSE:XPOF) and its trend of ROCE, we really liked what we saw.

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

For those who don't know, ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. The formula for this calculation on Xponential Fitness is:

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

0.011 = US$4.1m ÷ (US$463m - US$86m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).

Thus, Xponential Fitness has an ROCE of 1.1%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Hospitality industry average of 10%.

Check out our latest analysis for Xponential Fitness

In the above chart we have measured Xponential Fitness' prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Xponential Fitness Tell Us?

The fact that Xponential Fitness is now generating some pre-tax profits from its prior investments is very encouraging. Shareholders would no doubt be pleased with this because the business was loss-making three years ago but is is now generating 1.1% on its capital. In addition to that, Xponential Fitness is employing 45% 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.

What We Can Learn From Xponential Fitness' ROCE

Overall, Xponential Fitness gets a big tick from us thanks in most part to the fact that it is now profitable and is reinvesting in its business. And investors seem to expect more of this going forward, since the stock has rewarded shareholders with a 59% return over the last year. In light of that, we think it's worth looking further into this stock because if Xponential Fitness can keep these trends up, it could have a bright future ahead.

If you want to continue researching Xponential Fitness, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.