Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? 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. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. Having said that, from a first glance at Wuxi Lihu (SZSE:300694) we aren't jumping out of our chairs at how returns are trending, but let's have a deeper look.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

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 Wuxi Lihu, this is the formula:

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

0.05 = CN¥68m ÷ (CN¥2.0b - CN¥664m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

Thus, Wuxi Lihu has an ROCE of 5.0%. In absolute terms, that's a low return but it's around the Auto Components industry average of 5.8%.

Check out our latest analysis for Wuxi Lihu

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 Wuxi Lihu, check out these free graphs here.

The Trend Of ROCE

On the surface, the trend of ROCE at Wuxi Lihu doesn't inspire confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 20% over the last five years. 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's worth keeping an eye on the company's earnings from here on to see if these investments do end up contributing to the bottom line.

On a related note, Wuxi Lihu has decreased its current liabilities to 33% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. What's more, this can reduce some aspects of risk to the business because now the company's suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of its operations. Some would claim this reduces the business' efficiency at generating ROCE since it is now funding more of the operations with its own money.

The Key Takeaway

Bringing it all together, while we're somewhat encouraged by Wuxi Lihu's reinvestment in its own business, we're aware that returns are shrinking. And in the last five years, the stock has given away 55% so the market doesn't look too hopeful on these trends strengthening any time soon. All in all, the inherent trends aren't typical of multi-baggers, so if that's what you're after, we think you might have more luck elsewhere.

Wuxi Lihu does have some risks, we noticed 2 warning signs (and 1 which is a bit unpleasant) we think you should know about.

While Wuxi Lihu isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.

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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.