Burberry Group (LON:BRBY) Hasn't Managed To Accelerate Its Returns

If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look for? 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. That's why when we briefly looked at Burberry Group's (LON:BRBY) ROCE trend, we were pretty happy with what we saw.

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

For those who don't know, ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. The formula for this calculation on Burberry Group is:

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

0.20 = UK£560m ÷ (UK£3.6b - UK£764m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2021).

So, Burberry Group has an ROCE of 20%. In absolute terms, that's a pretty normal return, and it's somewhat close to the Luxury industry average of 19%.

Check out our latest analysis for Burberry Group

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Burberry Group compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Burberry Group here for free.

The Trend Of ROCE

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 20% and the business has deployed 70% more capital into its operations. Since 20% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. 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.

Our Take On Burberry Group's ROCE

In the end, Burberry Group 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 32% return to shareholders who held over that period. So because of the trends we're seeing, we'd recommend looking further into this stock to see if it has the makings of a multi-bagger.

One more thing to note, we've identified 1 warning sign with Burberry Group and understanding it should be part of your investment process.

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.