BAE Systems (LON:BA.) Has Some Way To Go To Become A Multi-Bagger

If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look for? 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. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. So, when we ran our eye over BAE Systems' (LON:BA.) trend of ROCE, we liked what we saw.

Understanding 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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for BAE Systems:

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

0.10 = UK£2.2b ÷ (UK£31b - UK£9.8b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2022).

Therefore, BAE Systems has an ROCE of 10%. By itself that's a normal return on capital and it's in line with the industry's average returns of 10%.

See our latest analysis for BAE Systems

In the above chart we have measured BAE Systems' prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering BAE Systems here for free.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

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 10% and the business has deployed 40% more capital into its operations. 10% is a pretty standard return, and it provides some comfort knowing that BAE Systems has consistently earned this amount. Over long periods of time, returns like these might not be too exciting, but with consistency they can pay off in terms of share price returns.

In Conclusion...

In the end, BAE Systems has proven its ability to adequately reinvest capital at good rates of return. And the stock has followed suit returning a meaningful 92% to shareholders over the last five years. So even though the stock might be more "expensive" than it was before, we think the strong fundamentals warrant this stock for further research.

BAE Systems could be trading at an attractive price in other respects, so you might find our free intrinsic value estimation on our platform quite valuable.

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.