Returns On Capital - An Important Metric For Artprice.com (EPA:PRC)

Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? One common approach is to try and find a company with returns on capital employed (ROCE) that are increasing, in conjunction with a growing 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. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at Artprice.com (EPA:PRC) so let's look a bit deeper.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it?

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for Artprice.com, this is the formula:

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

0.058 = €1.2m ÷ (€22m - €1.1m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

Therefore, Artprice.com has an ROCE of 5.8%. On its own, that's a low figure but it's around the 5.3% average generated by the Interactive Media and Services industry.

See our latest analysis for Artprice.com

While the past is not representative of the future, it can be helpful to know how a company has performed historically, which is why we have this chart above. If you want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of Artprice.com, check out these free graphs here.

So How Is Artprice.com's ROCE Trending?

While in absolute terms it isn't a high ROCE, it's promising to see that it has been moving in the right direction. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 5.8%. The amount of capital employed has increased too, by 36%. This can indicate that there's plenty of opportunities to invest capital internally and at ever higher rates, a combination that's common among multi-baggers.

In Conclusion...

To sum it up, Artprice.com has proven it can reinvest in the business and generate higher returns on that capital employed, which is terrific. Given the stock has declined 44% in the last five years, this could be a good investment if the valuation and other metrics are also appealing. So researching this company further and determining whether or not these trends will continue seems justified.

Artprice.com does have some risks though, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Artprice.com that you might be interested in.

While Artprice.com isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.

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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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