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. Put simply, these types of businesses are compounding machines, meaning they are continually reinvesting their earnings at ever-higher rates of return. With that in mind, the ROCE of Allegion (NYSE:ALLE) looks attractive right now, so lets see what the trend of returns can tell us.

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. To calculate this metric for Allegion, this is the formula:

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

0.20 = US$723m ÷ (US$4.2b - US$650m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

Thus, Allegion has an ROCE of 20%. That's a fantastic return and not only that, it outpaces the average of 16% earned by companies in a similar industry.

Check out our latest analysis for Allegion

In the above chart we have measured Allegion's 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 Can We Tell From Allegion's ROCE Trend?

We'd be pretty happy with returns on capital like Allegion. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 20% and the business has deployed 58% more capital into its operations. Returns like this are the envy of most businesses and given it has repeatedly reinvested at these rates, that's even better. If Allegion can keep this up, we'd be very optimistic about its future.

In Conclusion...

In short, we'd argue Allegion has the makings of a multi-bagger since its been able to compound its capital at very profitable rates of return. And the stock has followed suit returning a meaningful 53% to shareholders over the last five years. So even though the stock might be more "expensive" than it was before, we think the strong fundamentals warrant this stock for further research.

One more thing, we've spotted 2 warning signs facing Allegion that you might find interesting.

Allegion is not the only stock earning high returns. If you'd like to see more, check out our free list of companies earning high returns on equity with solid fundamentals.

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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.