Here's What To Make Of James Hardie Industries' (ASX:JHX) Returns On Capital

If we want to find a potential multi-bagger, often there are underlying trends that can provide clues. 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. Put simply, these types of businesses are compounding machines, meaning they are continually reinvesting their earnings at ever-higher rates of return. Although, when we looked at James Hardie Industries (ASX:JHX), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it?

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 James Hardie Industries, this is the formula:

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

0.14 = US$518m ÷ (US$4.2b - US$545m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

Thus, James Hardie Industries has an ROCE of 14%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Basic Materials industry average of 9.1% it's much better.

View our latest analysis for James Hardie Industries

In the above chart we have measured James Hardie Industries' prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

When we looked at the ROCE trend at James Hardie Industries, we didn't gain much confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 22% over the last five years. On the other hand, the company has been employing more capital without a corresponding improvement in sales in the last year, which could suggest these investments are longer term plays. It's worth keeping an eye on the company's earnings from here on to see if these investments do end up contributing to the bottom line.

What We Can Learn From James Hardie Industries' ROCE

To conclude, we've found that James Hardie Industries is reinvesting in the business, but returns have been falling. Yet to long term shareholders the stock has gifted them an incredible 172% return in the last five years, so the market appears to be rosy about its future. But if the trajectory of these underlying trends continue, we think the likelihood of it being a multi-bagger from here isn't high.

If you'd like to know about the risks facing James Hardie Industries, we've discovered 3 warning signs that you should be aware of.

While James Hardie Industries 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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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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