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. With that in mind, the ROCE of Eagers Automotive (ASX:APE) looks great, so lets see what the trend can tell us.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

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 Eagers Automotive:

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

0.20 = AU$549m ÷ (AU$5.4b - AU$2.6b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Thus, Eagers Automotive has an ROCE of 20%. In absolute terms that's a very respectable return and compared to the Specialty Retail industry average of 17% it's pretty much on par.

See our latest analysis for Eagers Automotive

In the above chart we have measured Eagers Automotive'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 Eagers Automotive .

So How Is Eagers Automotive's ROCE Trending?

We like the trends that we're seeing from Eagers Automotive. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 20%. 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 139%. This can indicate that there's plenty of opportunities to invest capital internally and at ever higher rates, a combination that's common among multi-baggers.

On a separate but related note, it's important to know that Eagers Automotive has a current liabilities to total assets ratio of 48%, which we'd consider pretty high. This can bring about some risks because the company is basically operating with a rather large reliance on its suppliers or other sorts of short-term creditors. While it's not necessarily a bad thing, it can be beneficial if this ratio is lower.

What We Can Learn From Eagers Automotive's ROCE

A company that is growing its returns on capital and can consistently reinvest in itself is a highly sought after trait, and that's what Eagers Automotive has. Since the stock has returned a solid 43% to shareholders over the last five years, it's fair to say investors are beginning to recognize these changes. In light of that, we think it's worth looking further into this stock because if Eagers Automotive can keep these trends up, it could have a bright future ahead.

If you'd like to know more about Eagers Automotive, we've spotted 2 warning signs, and 1 of them is a bit unpleasant.

High returns are a key ingredient to strong performance, so check out our free list ofstocks earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.

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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.