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. 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. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. So on that note, MakeMyTrip (NASDAQ:MMYT) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

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. To calculate this metric for MakeMyTrip, this is the formula:

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

0.054 = US$75m ÷ (US$1.7b - US$338m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Therefore, MakeMyTrip has an ROCE of 5.4%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Hospitality industry average of 11%.

In the above chart we have measured MakeMyTrip's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering MakeMyTrip for free.

So How Is MakeMyTrip's ROCE Trending?

MakeMyTrip has broken into the black (profitability) and we're sure it's a sight for sore eyes. While the business was unprofitable in the past, it's now turned things around and is earning 5.4% on its capital. Interestingly, the capital employed by the business has remained relatively flat, so these higher returns are either from prior investments paying off or increased efficiencies. So while we're happy that the business is more efficient, just keep in mind that could mean that going forward the business is lacking areas to invest internally for growth. So if you're looking for high growth, you'll want to see a business's capital employed also increasing.

Our Take On MakeMyTrip's ROCE

To bring it all together, MakeMyTrip has done well to increase the returns it's generating from its capital employed. And a remarkable 339% total return over the last five years tells us that investors are expecting more good things to come in the future. Therefore, we think it would be worth your time to check if these trends are going to continue.

One more thing to note, we've identified 1 warning sign with MakeMyTrip and understanding it should be part of your investment process.

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.