Investors Shouldn't Overlook TPC Consolidated's (ASX:TPC) Impressive Returns On Capital

If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. One common approach is to try and find a company with returns on capital employed (ROCE) that are increasing, in conjunction with a growing amount of capital employed. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. With that in mind, the ROCE of TPC Consolidated (ASX:TPC) looks great, so lets see what the trend can tell us.

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

Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. To calculate this metric for TPC Consolidated, this is the formula:

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

0.22 = AU$3.5m ÷ (AU$31m - AU$16m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

Therefore, TPC Consolidated has an ROCE of 22%. That's a fantastic return and not only that, it outpaces the average of 4.7% earned by companies in a similar industry.

See our latest analysis for TPC Consolidated

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're interested in investigating TPC Consolidated's past further, check out this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

The Trend Of ROCE

We're delighted to see that TPC Consolidated is reaping rewards from its investments and is now generating some pre-tax profits. About five years ago the company was generating losses but things have turned around because it's now earning 22% on its capital. And unsurprisingly, like most companies trying to break into the black, TPC Consolidated is utilizing 664% more capital than it was five years ago. This can tell us that the company has plenty of reinvestment opportunities that are able to generate higher returns.

On a related note, the company's ratio of current liabilities to total assets has decreased to 49%, which basically reduces it's funding from the likes of short-term creditors or suppliers. So this improvement in ROCE has come from the business' underlying economics, which is great to see. Nevertheless, there are some potential risks the company is bearing with current liabilities that high, so just keep that in mind.

Our Take On TPC Consolidated's ROCE

Long story short, we're delighted to see that TPC Consolidated's reinvestment activities have paid off and the company is now profitable. And with the stock having performed exceptionally well over the last five years, these patterns are being accounted for by investors. Therefore, we think it would be worth your time to check if these trends are going to continue.

TPC Consolidated does have some risks though, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for TPC Consolidated that you might be interested in.

If you'd like to see other companies earning high returns, check out our free list of companies earning high returns with solid balance sheets here.

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