If we're looking to avoid a business that is in decline, what are the trends that can warn us ahead of time? When we see a declining return on capital employed (ROCE) in conjunction with a declining base of capital employed, that's often how a mature business shows signs of aging. This indicates the company is producing less profit from its investments and its total assets are decreasing. On that note, looking into Guoco Group (HKG:53), we weren't too upbeat about how things were going.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

For those who don't know, ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. To calculate this metric for Guoco Group, this is the formula:

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

0.022 = US$282m ÷ (US$17b - US$3.7b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2022).

Thus, Guoco Group has an ROCE of 2.2%. In absolute terms, that's a low return but it's around the Industrials industry average of 2.5%.

Check out our latest analysis for Guoco Group

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Guoco Group's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of Guoco Group, check out these free graphs here.

How Are Returns Trending?

We are a bit worried about the trend of returns on capital at Guoco Group. To be more specific, the ROCE was 6.5% five years ago, but since then it has dropped noticeably. And on the capital employed front, the business is utilizing roughly the same amount of capital as it was back then. Since returns are falling and the business has the same amount of assets employed, this can suggest it's a mature business that hasn't had much growth in the last five years. If these trends continue, we wouldn't expect Guoco Group to turn into a multi-bagger.

The Key Takeaway

All in all, the lower returns from the same amount of capital employed aren't exactly signs of a compounding machine. Investors haven't taken kindly to these developments, since the stock has declined 34% from where it was five years ago. With underlying trends that aren't great in these areas, we'd consider looking elsewhere.

Since virtually every company faces some risks, it's worth knowing what they are, and we've spotted 4 warning signs for Guoco Group (of which 1 is a bit unpleasant!) that you should know about.

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.