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What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? Firstly, we'd want to identify a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and then alongside that, an ever-increasing base 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. Although, when we looked at Almunda Professionals (AMS:AMUND), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.
What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?
If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for Almunda Professionals, this is the formula:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.10 = €2.8m ÷ (€35m - €7.6m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).
Therefore, Almunda Professionals has an ROCE of 10%. By itself that's a normal return on capital and it's in line with the industry's average returns of 10%.
View our latest analysis for Almunda Professionals
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'd like to look at how Almunda Professionals has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.
What Does the ROCE Trend For Almunda Professionals Tell Us?
When we looked at the ROCE trend at Almunda Professionals, we didn't gain much confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 17% over the last five years. However, given capital employed and revenue have both increased it appears that the business is currently pursuing growth, at the consequence of short term returns. And if the increased capital generates additional returns, the business, and thus shareholders, will benefit in the long run.
On a side note, Almunda Professionals has done well to pay down its current liabilities to 22% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. Effectively this means their suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of the business, which reduces some elements of risk. Since the business is basically funding more of its operations with it's own money, you could argue this has made the business less efficient at generating ROCE.
What We Can Learn From Almunda Professionals' ROCE
In summary, despite lower returns in the short term, we're encouraged to see that Almunda Professionals is reinvesting for growth and has higher sales as a result. Furthermore the stock has climbed 53% over the last five years, it would appear that investors are upbeat about the future. So while investors seem to be recognizing these promising trends, we would look further into this stock to make sure the other metrics justify the positive view.