What underlying fundamental trends can indicate that a company might be in decline? A business that's potentially in decline often shows two trends, a return on capital employed (ROCE) that's declining, and a base of capital employed that's also declining. Trends like this ultimately mean the business is reducing its investments and also earning less on what it has invested. So after we looked into Genimous Technology (SZSE:000676), the trends above didn't look too great.

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 Genimous Technology, this is the formula:

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

0.032 = CN¥131m ÷ (CN¥4.5b - CN¥474m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

So, Genimous Technology has an ROCE of 3.2%. On its own that's a low return on capital but it's in line with the industry's average returns of 3.0%.

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 , check out these free graphs detailing revenue and cash flow performance of Genimous Technology.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

We are a bit anxious about the trends of ROCE at Genimous Technology. To be more specific, today's ROCE was 12% five years ago but has since fallen to 3.2%. In addition to that, Genimous Technology is now employing 33% less capital than it was five years ago. When you see both ROCE and capital employed diminishing, it can often be a sign of a mature and shrinking business that might be in structural decline. Typically businesses that exhibit these characteristics aren't the ones that tend to multiply over the long term, because statistically speaking, they've already gone through the growth phase of their life cycle.

On a related note, Genimous Technology has decreased its current liabilities to 10% of total assets. That could partly explain why the ROCE has dropped. Effectively this means their suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of the business, which reduces some elements of risk. Since the business is basically funding more of its operations with it's own money, you could argue this has made the business less efficient at generating ROCE.

The Bottom Line On Genimous Technology's ROCE

To see Genimous Technology reducing the capital employed in the business in tandem with diminishing returns, is concerning. Long term shareholders who've owned the stock over the last five years have experienced a 18% depreciation in their investment, so it appears the market might not like these trends either. Unless there is a shift to a more positive trajectory in these metrics, we would look elsewhere.

If you're still interested in Genimous Technology it's worth checking out our FREE intrinsic value approximation for 000676 to see if it's trading at an attractive price in other respects.

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.