To find a multi-bagger stock, what are the underlying trends we should look for in a business? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's 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. Although, when we looked at Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery (SHSE:605286), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.

Understanding 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. The formula for this calculation on Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery is:

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

0.097 = CN¥221m ÷ (CN¥3.4b - CN¥1.2b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

Thus, Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery has an ROCE of 9.7%. In absolute terms, that's a low return, but it's much better than the Machinery industry average of 6.1%.

View our latest analysis for Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery

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 Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery, check out these free graphs here.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

On the surface, the trend of ROCE at Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery doesn't inspire confidence. Over the last five years, returns on capital have decreased to 9.7% from 28% five years ago. On the other hand, the company has been employing more capital without a corresponding improvement in sales in the last year, which could suggest these investments are longer term plays. It may take some time before the company starts to see any change in earnings from these investments.

On a side note, Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery has done well to pay down its current liabilities to 34% 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. Some would claim this reduces the business' efficiency at generating ROCE since it is now funding more of the operations with its own money.

What We Can Learn From Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery's ROCE

Bringing it all together, while we're somewhat encouraged by Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery's reinvestment in its own business, we're aware that returns are shrinking. And investors appear hesitant that the trends will pick up because the stock has fallen 28% in the last year. 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.

Jiangsu Tongli Risheng Machinery could be trading at an attractive price in other respects, so you might find our free intrinsic value estimation on our platform quite valuable.

For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.