Returns On Capital Are Showing Encouraging Signs At Mitsides (CSE:MIT)

If you're not sure where to start when looking for the next multi-bagger, there are a few key trends you should keep an eye out for. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing 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, we've noticed some promising trends at Mitsides (CSE:MIT) so let's look a bit deeper.

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 Mitsides, this is the formula:

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

0.062 = €1.3m ÷ (€40m - €20m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

Thus, Mitsides has an ROCE of 6.2%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Food industry average of 9.2%.

Check out our latest analysis for Mitsides

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'd like to look at how Mitsides has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

Mitsides has broken into the black (profitability) and we're sure it's a sight for sore eyes. While the business was unprofitable in the past, it's now turned things around and is earning 6.2% on its capital. Interestingly, the capital employed by the business has remained relatively flat, so these higher returns are either from prior investments paying off or increased efficiencies. So while we're happy that the business is more efficient, just keep in mind that could mean that going forward the business is lacking areas to invest internally for growth. So if you're looking for high growth, you'll want to see a business's capital employed also increasing.

On a side note, Mitsides' current liabilities are still rather high at 50% of total assets. This can bring about some risks because the company is basically operating with a rather large reliance on its suppliers or other sorts of short-term creditors. While it's not necessarily a bad thing, it can be beneficial if this ratio is lower.

The Key Takeaway

To sum it up, Mitsides is collecting higher returns from the same amount of capital, and that's impressive. Investors may not be impressed by the favorable underlying trends yet because over the last three years the stock has only returned 13% to shareholders. Given that, we'd look further into this stock in case it has more traits that could make it multiply in the long term.

On a final note, we've found 3 warning signs for Mitsides that we think you should be aware of.

While Mitsides 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.