Here's What To Make Of Héroux-Devtek's (TSE:HRX) Returns On Capital

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. However, after investigating Héroux-Devtek (TSE:HRX), we don't think it's current trends fit the mold of a multi-bagger.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

For those who don't know, ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. The formula for this calculation on Héroux-Devtek is:

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

0.067 = CA$49m ÷ (CA$929m - CA$206m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

Therefore, Héroux-Devtek has an ROCE of 6.7%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Aerospace & Defense industry average of 8.6%.

See our latest analysis for Héroux-Devtek

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Héroux-Devtek compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Héroux-Devtek Tell Us?

In terms of Héroux-Devtek's historical ROCE trend, it doesn't exactly demand attention. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 6.7% and the business has deployed 57% more capital into its operations. This poor ROCE doesn't inspire confidence right now, and with the increase in capital employed, it's evident that the business isn't deploying the funds into high return investments.

In Conclusion...

As we've seen above, Héroux-Devtek's returns on capital haven't increased but it is reinvesting in the business. And in the last five years, the stock has given away 20% so the market doesn't look too hopeful on these trends strengthening any time soon. On the whole, we aren't too inspired by the underlying trends and we think there may be better chances of finding a multi-bagger elsewhere.

If you want to continue researching Héroux-Devtek, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.

While Héroux-Devtek 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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