Ignoring the stock price of a company, what are the underlying trends that tell us a business is past the growth phase? When we see a declining return on capital employed (ROCE) in conjunction with a declining base of capital employed, that's often how a mature business shows signs of aging. This combination can tell you that not only is the company investing less, it's earning less on what it does invest. So after we looked into Atrion (NASDAQ:ATRI), the trends above didn't look too great.

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 Atrion, this is the formula:

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

0.091 = US$23m ÷ (US$261m - US$13m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

Therefore, Atrion has an ROCE of 9.1%. On its own, that's a low figure but it's around the 9.6% average generated by the Medical Equipment industry.

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'd like to look at how Atrion has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of Atrion's past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Atrion Tell Us?

We are a bit worried about the trend of returns on capital at Atrion. About five years ago, returns on capital were 19%, however they're now substantially lower than that as we saw above. And on the capital employed front, the business is utilizing roughly the same amount of capital as it was back then. This combination can be indicative of a mature business that still has areas to deploy capital, but the returns received aren't as high due potentially to new competition or smaller margins. If these trends continue, we wouldn't expect Atrion to turn into a multi-bagger.

Our Take On Atrion's ROCE

All in all, the lower returns from the same amount of capital employed aren't exactly signs of a compounding machine. Long term shareholders who've owned the stock over the last five years have experienced a 51% depreciation in their investment, so it appears the market might not like these trends either. With underlying trends that aren't great in these areas, we'd consider looking elsewhere.

Since virtually every company faces some risks, it's worth knowing what they are, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Atrion (of which 1 is potentially serious!) that you should know about.

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.