Returns At Groupe Guillin (EPA:ALGIL) Appear To Be Weighed Down

If we want to find a potential multi-bagger, often there are underlying trends that can provide clues. Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's 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, the ROCE of Groupe Guillin (EPA:ALGIL) looks decent, right now, so lets see what the trend of returns can tell us.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on Groupe Guillin is:

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

0.14 = €74m ÷ (€672m - €154m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

So, Groupe Guillin has an ROCE of 14%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Packaging industry average of 11% it's much better.

See our latest analysis for Groupe Guillin

In the above chart we have measured Groupe Guillin's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

What Can We Tell From Groupe Guillin's ROCE Trend?

The trend of ROCE doesn't stand out much, but returns on a whole are decent. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 14% and the business has deployed 60% more capital into its operations. Since 14% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. Stable returns in this ballpark can be unexciting, but if they can be maintained over the long run, they often provide nice rewards to shareholders.

One more thing to note, even though ROCE has remained relatively flat over the last five years, the reduction in current liabilities to 23% of total assets, is good to see from a business owner's perspective. This can eliminate some of the risks inherent in the operations because the business has less outstanding obligations to their suppliers and or short-term creditors than they did previously.

In Conclusion...

In the end, Groupe Guillin has proven its ability to adequately reinvest capital at good rates of return. However, over the last five years, the stock has only delivered a 21% return to shareholders who held over that period. So to determine if Groupe Guillin is a multi-bagger going forward, we'd suggest digging deeper into the company's other fundamentals.

Like most companies, Groupe Guillin does come with some risks, and we've found 1 warning sign that you should be aware of.

While Groupe Guillin 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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