To find a multi-bagger stock, what are the underlying trends we should look for in a business? In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. That's why when we briefly looked at Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Ltd's (SZSE:002056) ROCE trend, we were pretty happy with what we saw.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

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 Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Ltd:

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

0.13 = CN¥1.3b ÷ (CN¥21b - CN¥11b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

Thus, Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Ltd has an ROCE of 13%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Electronic industry average of 5.5% it's much better.

In the above chart we have measured Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Ltd'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 analyst report for Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Ltd .

The Trend Of ROCE

The trend of ROCE doesn't stand out much, but returns on a whole are decent. The company has consistently earned 13% for the last five years, and the capital employed within the business has risen 86% in that time. Since 13% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. Stable returns in this ballpark can be unexciting, but if they can be maintained over the long run, they often provide nice rewards to shareholders.

Another point to note, we noticed the company has increased current liabilities over the last five years. This is intriguing because if current liabilities hadn't increased to 53% of total assets, this reported ROCE would probably be less than13% because total capital employed would be higher.The 13% ROCE could be even lower if current liabilities weren't 53% of total assets, because the the formula would show a larger base of total capital employed. So with current liabilities at such high levels, this effectively means the likes of suppliers or short-term creditors are funding a meaningful part of the business, which in some instances can bring some risks.

The Bottom Line On Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Ltd's ROCE

To sum it up, Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Ltd has simply been reinvesting capital steadily, at those decent rates of return. And since the stock has risen strongly over the last five years, it appears the market might expect this trend to continue. 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 identified 3 warning signs with Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Ltd (at least 1 which is significant) , and understanding them would certainly be useful.

If you want to search for solid companies with great earnings, check out this free list of companies with good balance sheets and impressive 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.