Some Investors May Be Worried About SKAKO's (CPH:SKAKO) Returns On Capital

What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? 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. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. Having said that, from a first glance at SKAKO (CPH:SKAKO) we aren't jumping out of our chairs at how returns are trending, but let's have a deeper look.

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 SKAKO is:

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

0.082 = kr.13m ÷ (kr.309m - kr.145m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2021).

Therefore, SKAKO has an ROCE of 8.2%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Machinery industry average of 10%.

View our latest analysis for SKAKO

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for SKAKO's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you'd like to look at how SKAKO has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

The Trend Of ROCE

In terms of SKAKO's historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 15% over the last five years. However it looks like SKAKO might be reinvesting for long term growth because while capital employed has increased, the company's sales haven't changed much in the last 12 months. It's worth keeping an eye on the company's earnings from here on to see if these investments do end up contributing to the bottom line.

Another thing to note, SKAKO has a high ratio of current liabilities to total assets of 47%. 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.

Our Take On SKAKO's ROCE

In summary, SKAKO is reinvesting funds back into the business for growth but unfortunately it looks like sales haven't increased much just yet. Since the stock has declined 27% over the last five years, investors may not be too optimistic on this trend improving either. Therefore based on the analysis done in this article, we don't think SKAKO has the makings of a multi-bagger.

On a final note, we found 3 warning signs for SKAKO (1 is concerning) you should be aware of.

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.