Will the Promising Trends At RIAS (CPH:RIAS B) Continue?

If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look for? Firstly, we'll want to see a proven return on capital employed (ROCE) that is increasing, and secondly, an expanding base of capital employed. Put simply, these types of businesses are compounding machines, meaning they are continually reinvesting their earnings at ever-higher rates of return. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at RIAS (CPH:RIAS B) so let's look a bit deeper.

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 RIAS is:

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

0.071 = kr.13m ÷ (kr.248m - kr.61m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

Thus, RIAS has an ROCE of 7.1%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Trade Distributors industry average of 11%.

View our latest analysis for RIAS

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for RIAS' ROCE against it's prior returns. If you want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of RIAS, check out these free graphs here.

What Can We Tell From RIAS' ROCE Trend?

RIAS' ROCE growth is quite impressive. The figures show that over the last five years, ROCE has grown 105% whilst employing roughly the same amount of capital. So it's likely that the business is now reaping the full benefits of its past investments, since the capital employed hasn't changed considerably. On that front, things are looking good so it's worth exploring what management has said about growth plans going forward.

In Conclusion...

To sum it up, RIAS is collecting higher returns from the same amount of capital, and that's impressive. Since the stock has only returned 32% to shareholders over the last five years, the promising fundamentals may not be recognized yet by investors. 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 separate note, we've found 1 warning sign for RIAS you'll probably want to know about.

While RIAS 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.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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