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. Ultimately this means that the company is earning less per dollar invested and on top of that, it's shrinking its base of capital employed. On that note, looking into Shenzhen V&T Technologies (SZSE:300484), we weren't too upbeat about how things were going.

Understanding 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. The formula for this calculation on Shenzhen V&T Technologies is:

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

0.022 = CN¥15m ÷ (CN¥839m - CN¥170m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Therefore, Shenzhen V&T Technologies has an ROCE of 2.2%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Electrical industry average of 5.9%.

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 Shenzhen V&T Technologies.

So How Is Shenzhen V&T Technologies' ROCE Trending?

We are a bit worried about the trend of returns on capital at Shenzhen V&T Technologies. To be more specific, the ROCE was 4.3% five years ago, but since then it has dropped noticeably. Meanwhile, capital employed in the business has stayed roughly the flat over the period. Companies that exhibit these attributes tend to not be shrinking, but they can be mature and facing pressure on their margins from competition. So because these trends aren't typically conducive to creating a multi-bagger, we wouldn't hold our breath on Shenzhen V&T Technologies becoming one if things continue as they have.

On a related note, Shenzhen V&T Technologies has decreased its current liabilities to 20% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. Effectively this means their suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of the business, which reduces some elements of risk. Some would claim this reduces the business' efficiency at generating ROCE since it is now funding more of the operations with its own money.

Our Take On Shenzhen V&T Technologies' ROCE

In summary, it's unfortunate that Shenzhen V&T Technologies is generating lower returns from the same amount of capital. Yet despite these concerning fundamentals, the stock has performed strongly with a 46% return over the last five years, so investors appear very optimistic. Regardless, we don't feel too comfortable with the fundamentals so we'd be steering clear of this stock for now.

Shenzhen V&T Technologies does come with some risks though, we found 4 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 2 of those are concerning...

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.