Investors Will Want Big Rock Brewery's (TSE:BR) Growth In ROCE To Persist

Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? Firstly, we'd want to identify a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and then alongside that, an ever-increasing base of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. So on that note, Big Rock Brewery (TSE:BR) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.

What is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

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. The formula for this calculation on Big Rock Brewery is:

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

0.019 = CA$886k ÷ (CA$57m - CA$9.6m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2021).

Thus, Big Rock Brewery has an ROCE of 1.9%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Beverage industry average of 14%.

View our latest analysis for Big Rock Brewery

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, revenue and cash flow of Big Rock Brewery, check out these free graphs here.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

Shareholders will be relieved that Big Rock Brewery has broken into profitability. While the business was unprofitable in the past, it's now turned things around and is earning 1.9% on its capital. While returns have increased, the amount of capital employed by Big Rock Brewery has remained flat over the period. That being said, while an increase in efficiency is no doubt appealing, it'd be helpful to know if the company does have any investment plans going forward. After all, a company can only become a long term multi-bagger if it continually reinvests in itself at high rates of return.

What We Can Learn From Big Rock Brewery's ROCE

As discussed above, Big Rock Brewery appears to be getting more proficient at generating returns since capital employed has remained flat but earnings (before interest and tax) are up. Considering the stock has delivered 20% to its stockholders over the last five years, it may be fair to think that investors aren't fully aware of the promising trends yet. Given that, we'd look further into this stock in case it has more traits that could make it multiply in the long term.

If you'd like to know more about Big Rock Brewery, we've spotted 2 warning signs, and 1 of them is a bit concerning.

For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.

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