Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? Typically, we'll want to notice a trend of growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and alongside that, an expanding base of capital employed. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. Although, when we looked at Many Idea Cloud Holdings (HKG:6696), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for Many Idea Cloud Holdings, this is the formula:

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

0.024 = CN¥16m ÷ (CN¥919m - CN¥276m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Thus, Many Idea Cloud Holdings has an ROCE of 2.4%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Media industry average of 8.0%.

Check out our latest analysis for Many Idea Cloud Holdings

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 Many Idea Cloud Holdings.

How Are Returns Trending?

The trend of ROCE doesn't look fantastic because it's fallen from 25% four years ago, while the business's capital employed increased by 140%. However, some of the increase in capital employed could be attributed to the recent capital raising that's been completed prior to their latest reporting period, so keep that in mind when looking at the ROCE decrease. Many Idea Cloud Holdings probably hasn't received a full year of earnings yet from the new funds it raised, so these figures should be taken with a grain of salt.

The Key Takeaway

While returns have fallen for Many Idea Cloud Holdings in recent times, we're encouraged to see that sales are growing and that the business is reinvesting in its operations. And the stock has followed suit returning a meaningful 80% to shareholders over the last year. So should these growth trends continue, we'd be optimistic on the stock going forward.

One more thing: We've identified 7 warning signs with Many Idea Cloud Holdings (at least 4 which don't sit too well with us) , and understanding these would certainly be useful.

For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.

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