Capital Investments At Burberry Group (LON:BRBY) Point To A Promising Future

If you're not sure where to start when looking for the next multi-bagger, there are a few key trends you should keep an eye out for. Firstly, we'd want to identify a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and then alongside that, an ever-increasing base of capital employed. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. With that in mind, the ROCE of Burberry Group (LON:BRBY) looks attractive right now, so lets see what the trend of returns can tell us.

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. The formula for this calculation on Burberry Group is:

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

0.25 = UK£619m ÷ (UK£3.5b - UK£1.1b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

So, Burberry Group has an ROCE of 25%. In absolute terms that's a great return and it's even better than the Luxury industry average of 8.7%.

Check out our latest analysis for Burberry Group

In the above chart we have measured Burberry Group's 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 Burberry Group here for free.

The Trend Of ROCE

We'd be pretty happy with returns on capital like Burberry Group. The company has consistently earned 25% for the last five years, and the capital employed within the business has risen 58% in that time. Now considering ROCE is an attractive 25%, this combination is actually pretty appealing because it means the business can consistently put money to work and generate these high returns. If these trends can continue, it wouldn't surprise us if the company became a multi-bagger.

In Conclusion...

In summary, we're delighted to see that Burberry Group has been compounding returns by reinvesting at consistently high rates of return, as these are common traits of a multi-bagger. However, over the last five years, the stock hasn't provided much growth to shareholders in the way of total returns. For that reason, savvy investors might want to look further into this company in case it's a prime investment.

One more thing, we've spotted 1 warning sign facing Burberry Group that you might find interesting.

Burberry Group is not the only stock earning high returns. If you'd like to see more, check out our free list of companies earning high returns on equity with solid fundamentals.

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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.