What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? One common approach is to try and find a company with returns on capital employed (ROCE) that are increasing, in conjunction with a growing amount of capital employed. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at Inkeverse Group (HKG:3700) so let's look a bit deeper.

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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Inkeverse Group:

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

0.067 = CN¥296m ÷ (CN¥5.3b - CN¥908m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Thus, Inkeverse Group has an ROCE of 6.7%. Even though it's in line with the industry average of 7.1%, it's still a low return by itself.

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 Inkeverse Group.

So How Is Inkeverse Group's ROCE Trending?

Even though ROCE is still low in absolute terms, it's good to see it's heading in the right direction. The numbers show that in the last five years, the returns generated on capital employed have grown considerably to 6.7%. The company is effectively making more money per dollar of capital used, and it's worth noting that the amount of capital has increased too, by 24%. So we're very much inspired by what we're seeing at Inkeverse Group thanks to its ability to profitably reinvest capital.

Our Take On Inkeverse Group's ROCE

In summary, it's great to see that Inkeverse Group can compound returns by consistently reinvesting capital at increasing rates of return, because these are some of the key ingredients of those highly sought after multi-baggers. Investors may not be impressed by the favorable underlying trends yet because over the last five years the stock has only returned 22% 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.

On the other side of ROCE, we have to consider valuation. That's why we have a FREE intrinsic value estimation for 3700 on our platform that is definitely worth checking out.

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.