If you're not sure where to start when looking for the next multi-bagger, there are a few key trends you should keep an eye out for. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. In light of that, when we looked at Valhi (NYSE:VHI) and its ROCE trend, we weren't exactly thrilled.

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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Valhi:

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

0.057 = US$130m ÷ (US$2.8b - US$504m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

So, Valhi has an ROCE of 5.7%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Chemicals industry average of 8.4%.

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Valhi's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you'd like to look at how Valhi has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of Valhi's past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

So How Is Valhi's ROCE Trending?

Things have been pretty stable at Valhi, with its capital employed and returns on that capital staying somewhat the same for the last five years. Businesses with these traits tend to be mature and steady operations because they're past the growth phase. So unless we see a substantial change at Valhi in terms of ROCE and additional investments being made, we wouldn't hold our breath on it being a multi-bagger.

The Bottom Line

In summary, Valhi isn't compounding its earnings but is generating stable returns on the same amount of capital employed. Unsurprisingly, the stock has only gained 8.3% over the last five years, which potentially indicates that investors are accounting for this going forward. Therefore, if you're looking for a multi-bagger, we'd propose looking at other options.

Valhi does come with some risks though, we found 4 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those can't be ignored...

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.