If you're looking at a mature business that's past the growth phase, what are some of the underlying trends that pop up? 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. Trends like this ultimately mean the business is reducing its investments and also earning less on what it has invested. In light of that, from a first glance at Evergreen Products Group (HKG:1962), we've spotted some signs that it could be struggling, so let's investigate.

What Is 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 Evergreen Products Group, this is the formula:

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

0.099 = HK$86m ÷ (HK$1.6b - HK$719m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

So, Evergreen Products Group has an ROCE of 9.9%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Personal Products industry average of 13%.

See our latest analysis for Evergreen Products Group

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Evergreen Products Group's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you'd like to look at how Evergreen Products Group has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of Evergreen Products Group's past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What Can We Tell From Evergreen Products Group's ROCE Trend?

In terms of Evergreen Products Group's historical ROCE movements, the trend doesn't inspire confidence. About five years ago, returns on capital were 14%, however they're now substantially lower than that as we saw above. On top of that, it's worth noting that the amount of capital employed within the business has remained relatively steady. 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 Evergreen Products Group to turn into a multi-bagger.

On a side note, Evergreen Products Group's current liabilities are still rather high at 45% of total assets. 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 Key Takeaway

In the end, the trend of lower returns on the same amount of capital isn't typically an indication that we're looking at a growth stock. It should come as no surprise then that the stock has fallen 48% over the last five years, so it looks like investors are recognizing these changes. That being the case, unless the underlying trends revert to a more positive trajectory, we'd consider looking elsewhere.

Since virtually every company faces some risks, it's worth knowing what they are, and we've spotted 5 warning signs for Evergreen Products Group (of which 2 are concerning!) that you should know about.

While Evergreen Products Group may not currently earn the highest returns, we've compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here.

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