Returns At Johnson Matthey (LON:JMAT) Appear To Be Weighed Down

If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out 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. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. In light of that, when we looked at Johnson Matthey (LON:JMAT) and its ROCE trend, we weren't exactly thrilled.

What Is 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 Johnson Matthey:

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

0.12 = UK£477m ÷ (UK£7.0b - UK£2.9b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2023).

So, Johnson Matthey has an ROCE of 12%. By itself that's a normal return on capital and it's in line with the industry's average returns of 12%.

View our latest analysis for Johnson Matthey

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Johnson Matthey compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

There hasn't been much to report for Johnson Matthey's returns and its level of capital employed because both metrics have been steady for the past five years. This tells us the company isn't reinvesting in itself, so it's plausible that it's past the growth phase. So unless we see a substantial change at Johnson Matthey in terms of ROCE and additional investments being made, we wouldn't hold our breath on it being a multi-bagger. This probably explains why Johnson Matthey is paying out 40% of its income to shareholders in the form of dividends. Given the business isn't reinvesting in itself, it makes sense to distribute a portion of earnings among shareholders.

Another point to note, we noticed the company has increased current liabilities over the last five years. This is intriguing because if current liabilities hadn't increased to 41% of total assets, this reported ROCE would probably be less than12% because total capital employed would be higher.The 12% ROCE could be even lower if current liabilities weren't 41% of total assets, because the the formula would show a larger base of total capital employed. So with current liabilities at such high levels, this effectively means the likes of suppliers or short-term creditors are funding a meaningful part of the business, which in some instances can bring some risks.

The Key Takeaway

In a nutshell, Johnson Matthey has been trudging along with the same returns from the same amount of capital over the last five years. Since the stock has declined 42% over the last five years, investors may not be too optimistic on this trend improving either. In any case, the stock doesn't have these traits of a multi-bagger discussed above, so if that's what you're looking for, we think you'd have more luck elsewhere.

If you'd like to know about the risks facing Johnson Matthey, we've discovered 1 warning sign that you should be aware of.

While Johnson Matthey 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. 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.