There are a few key trends to look for if we want to identify the next multi-bagger. 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. Ergo, when we looked at the ROCE trends at Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB), we liked what we saw.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

For those who don't know, ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. The formula for this calculation on Kimberly-Clark is:

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

0.31 = US$3.1b ÷ (US$17b - US$7.1b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

Thus, Kimberly-Clark has an ROCE of 31%. In absolute terms that's a great return and it's even better than the Household Products industry average of 18%.

Check out our latest analysis for Kimberly-Clark

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Kimberly-Clark compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free analyst report for Kimberly-Clark .

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

We'd be pretty happy with returns on capital like Kimberly-Clark. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 31% and the business has deployed 22% more capital into its operations. Returns like this are the envy of most businesses and given it has repeatedly reinvested at these rates, that's even better. You'll see this when looking at well operated businesses or favorable business models.

Another thing to note, Kimberly-Clark has a high ratio of current liabilities to total assets of 41%. 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. Ideally we'd like to see this reduce as that would mean fewer obligations bearing risks.

The Bottom Line

In summary, we're delighted to see that Kimberly-Clark has been compounding returns by reinvesting at consistently high rates of return, as these are common traits of a multi-bagger. In light of this, the stock has only gained 2.3% over the last five years for shareholders who have owned the stock in this period. That's why it could be worth your time looking into this stock further to discover if it has more traits of a multi-bagger.

If you'd like to know about the risks facing Kimberly-Clark, we've discovered 1 warning sign that you should be aware of.

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.