Finding a business that has the potential to grow substantially is not easy, but it is possible if we look at a few key financial metrics. 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. In light of that, when we looked at AisinoLtd (SHSE:600271) and its ROCE trend, we weren't exactly thrilled.

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 AisinoLtd, this is the formula:

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

0.077 = CN¥1.4b ÷ (CN¥23b - CN¥5.5b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

Thus, AisinoLtd has an ROCE of 7.7%. On its own that's a low return, but compared to the average of 2.7% generated by the Software industry, it's much better.

In the above chart we have measured AisinoLtd'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 AisinoLtd .

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

When we looked at the ROCE trend at AisinoLtd, we didn't gain much confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 21% over the last five years. Given the business is employing more capital while revenue has slipped, this is a bit concerning. If this were to continue, you might be looking at a company that is trying to reinvest for growth but is actually losing market share since sales haven't increased.

In Conclusion...

In summary, we're somewhat concerned by AisinoLtd's diminishing returns on increasing amounts of capital. Investors haven't taken kindly to these developments, since the stock has declined 63% from where it was five years ago. That being the case, unless the underlying trends revert to a more positive trajectory, we'd consider looking elsewhere.

If you want to continue researching AisinoLtd, you might be interested to know about the 2 warning signs that our analysis has discovered.

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.