Bilfinger (ETR:GBF) Is Doing The Right Things To Multiply Its Share Price

If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. 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. So when we looked at Bilfinger (ETR:GBF) and its trend of ROCE, we really liked what we saw.

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. To calculate this metric for Bilfinger, this is the formula:

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

0.073 = €127m ÷ (€3.1b - €1.3b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2022).

Thus, Bilfinger has an ROCE of 7.3%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Commercial Services industry average of 9.2%.

View our latest analysis for Bilfinger

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Bilfinger compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Bilfinger here for free.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

We're delighted to see that Bilfinger is reaping rewards from its investments and has now broken into profitability. The company was generating losses five years ago, but now it's turned around, earning 7.3% which is no doubt a relief for some early shareholders. At first glance, it seems the business is getting more proficient at generating returns, because over the same period, the amount of capital employed has reduced by 23%. The reduction could indicate that the company is selling some assets, and considering returns are up, they appear to be selling the right ones.

On a side note, Bilfinger's current liabilities are still rather high at 43% of total assets. This effectively means that suppliers (or short-term creditors) are funding a large portion of the business, so just be aware that this can introduce some elements of risk. Ideally we'd like to see this reduce as that would mean fewer obligations bearing risks.

The Key Takeaway

In the end, Bilfinger has proven it's capital allocation skills are good with those higher returns from less amount of capital. And investors seem to expect more of this going forward, since the stock has rewarded shareholders with a 41% return over the last five years. So given the stock has proven it has promising trends, it's worth researching the company further to see if these trends are likely to persist.

On a separate note, we've found 3 warning signs for Bilfinger you'll probably want to know about.

If you want to search for solid companies with great earnings, check out this free list of companies with good balance sheets and impressive returns on equity.

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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.