Capital Allocation Trends At IDP Education (ASX:IEL) Aren't Ideal

There are a few key trends to look for if we want to identify the next multi-bagger. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing 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 when we looked at IDP Education (ASX:IEL), they do have a high ROCE, but we weren't exactly elated from how returns are trending.

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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for IDP Education:

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

0.25 = AU$246m ÷ (AU$1.3b - AU$289m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

Thus, IDP Education has an ROCE of 25%. In absolute terms that's a great return and it's even better than the Consumer Services industry average of 7.5%.

View our latest analysis for IDP Education

In the above chart we have measured IDP Education's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free analyst report for IDP Education .

So How Is IDP Education's ROCE Trending?

In terms of IDP Education's historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. While it's comforting that the ROCE is high, five years ago it was 39%. Although, given both revenue and the amount of assets employed in the business have increased, it could suggest the company is investing in growth, and the extra capital has led to a short-term reduction in ROCE. If these investments prove successful, this can bode very well for long term stock performance.

On a side note, IDP Education has done well to pay down its current liabilities to 23% of total assets. That could partly explain why the ROCE has dropped. What's more, this can reduce some aspects of risk to the business because now the company's suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of its operations. Since the business is basically funding more of its operations with it's own money, you could argue this has made the business less efficient at generating ROCE.

The Key Takeaway

Even though returns on capital have fallen in the short term, we find it promising that revenue and capital employed have both increased for IDP Education. These growth trends haven't led to growth returns though, since the stock has fallen 24% over the last five years. As a result, we'd recommend researching this stock further to uncover what other fundamentals of the business can show us.

If you'd like to know about the risks facing IDP Education, 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.

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