Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount 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. So on that note, China Pipe Group (HKG:380) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.

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. The formula for this calculation on China Pipe Group is:

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

0.085 = HK$69m ÷ (HK$973m - HK$158m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Thus, China Pipe Group has an ROCE of 8.5%. In absolute terms, that's a low return, but it's much better than the Trade Distributors industry average of 5.9%.

View our latest analysis for China Pipe Group

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 China Pipe Group.

So How Is China Pipe Group's ROCE Trending?

While in absolute terms it isn't a high ROCE, it's promising to see that it has been moving in the right direction. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 8.5%. The amount of capital employed has increased too, by 21%. So we're very much inspired by what we're seeing at China Pipe Group thanks to its ability to profitably reinvest capital.

Our Take On China Pipe Group's ROCE

To sum it up, China Pipe Group has proven it can reinvest in the business and generate higher returns on that capital employed, which is terrific. And since the stock has fallen 34% over the last five years, there might be an opportunity here. That being the case, research into the company's current valuation metrics and future prospects seems fitting.

One more thing, we've spotted 1 warning sign facing China Pipe Group that you might find interesting.

While China Pipe Group isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.

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