If we want to find a potential multi-bagger, often there are underlying trends that can provide clues. 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. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. With that in mind, the ROCE of Hyster-Yale (NYSE:HY) looks great, so lets see what the trend can tell us.

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

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 Hyster-Yale:

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

0.25 = US$258m ÷ (US$2.2b - US$1.1b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

Thus, Hyster-Yale has an ROCE of 25%. That's a fantastic return and not only that, it outpaces the average of 13% earned by companies in a similar industry.

In the above chart we have measured Hyster-Yale'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 Hyster-Yale .

The Trend Of ROCE

Hyster-Yale has not disappointed with their ROCE growth. Looking at the data, we can see that even though capital employed in the business has remained relatively flat, the ROCE generated has risen by 529% over the last five years. Basically the business is generating higher returns from the same amount of capital and that is proof that there are improvements in the company's efficiencies. It's worth looking deeper into this though because while it's great that the business is more efficient, it might also mean that going forward the areas to invest internally for the organic growth are lacking.

On a separate but related note, it's important to know that Hyster-Yale has a current liabilities to total assets ratio of 53%, which we'd consider pretty high. This effectively means that suppliers (or short-term creditors) are funding a large portion of the business, so just be aware that this can introduce some elements of risk. Ideally we'd like to see this reduce as that would mean fewer obligations bearing risks.

What We Can Learn From Hyster-Yale's ROCE

In summary, we're delighted to see that Hyster-Yale has been able to increase efficiencies and earn higher rates of return on the same amount of capital. Investors may not be impressed by the favorable underlying trends yet because over the last five years the stock has only returned 9.8% to shareholders. Given that, we'd look further into this stock in case it has more traits that could make it multiply in the long term.

One more thing: We've identified 2 warning signs with Hyster-Yale (at least 1 which is a bit unpleasant) , and understanding them would certainly be useful.

High returns are a key ingredient to strong performance, so check out our free list ofstocks 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.