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If you're not sure where to start when looking for the next multi-bagger, there are a few key trends you should keep an eye out for. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing 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. Speaking of which, we noticed some great changes in Strix Group's (LON:KETL) returns on capital, so let's have a look.
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 Strix Group:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.33 = UK£34m ÷ (UK£138m - UK£35m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021).
Thus, Strix Group has an ROCE of 33%. In absolute terms that's a great return and it's even better than the Electronic industry average of 11%.
See our latest analysis for Strix Group
Above you can see how the current ROCE for Strix Group compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for Strix Group.
The Trend Of ROCE
We're pretty happy with how the ROCE has been trending at Strix Group. The data shows that returns on capital have increased by 205% over the trailing five years. That's not bad because this tells for every dollar invested (capital employed), the company is increasing the amount earned from that dollar. Speaking of capital employed, the company is actually utilizing 59% less than it was five years ago, which can be indicative of a business that's improving its efficiency. A business that's shrinking its asset base like this isn't usually typical of a soon to be multi-bagger company.
One more thing to note, Strix Group has decreased current liabilities to 26% of total assets over this period, which effectively reduces the amount of funding from suppliers or short-term creditors. So shareholders would be pleased that the growth in returns has mostly come from underlying business performance.
The Bottom Line On Strix Group's ROCE
In the end, Strix Group has proven it's capital allocation skills are good with those higher returns from less amount of capital. Since the stock has only returned 31% to shareholders over the last five years, the promising fundamentals may not be recognized yet by investors. So with that in mind, we think the stock deserves further research.