Investors Will Want Nexans' (EPA:NEX) Growth In ROCE To Persist

If we want to find a potential multi-bagger, often there are underlying trends that can provide clues. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. So on that note, Nexans (EPA:NEX) 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 Nexans is:

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

0.13 = €386m ÷ (€6.6b - €3.7b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

Thus, Nexans has an ROCE of 13%. By itself that's a normal return on capital and it's in line with the industry's average returns of 13%.

View our latest analysis for Nexans

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Nexans compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for Nexans.

So How Is Nexans' ROCE Trending?

Nexans is showing promise given that its ROCE is trending up and to the right. The figures show that over the last five years, ROCE has grown 37% whilst employing roughly the same amount of capital. So our take on this is that the business has increased efficiencies to generate these higher returns, all the while not needing to make any additional investments. It's worth looking deeper into this though because while it's great that the business is more efficient, it might also mean that going forward the areas to invest internally for the organic growth are lacking.

On a separate but related note, it's important to know that Nexans has a current liabilities to total assets ratio of 57%, which we'd consider pretty high. 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 Bottom Line On Nexans' ROCE

In summary, we're delighted to see that Nexans has been able to increase efficiencies and earn higher rates of return on the same amount of capital. And with the stock having performed exceptionally well over the last five years, these patterns are being accounted for by investors. With that being said, we still think the promising fundamentals mean the company deserves some further due diligence.

On a separate note, we've found 2 warning signs for Nexans 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.