Return Trends At Currys (LON:CURY) Aren't Appealing

What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? 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. Although, when we looked at Currys (LON:CURY), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.

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. The formula for this calculation on Currys is:

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

0.056 = UK£237m ÷ (UK£6.9b - UK£2.6b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to May 2021).

Therefore, Currys has an ROCE of 5.6%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Specialty Retail industry average of 13%.

See our latest analysis for Currys

In the above chart we have measured Currys' 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 Currys here for free.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Currys Tell Us?

Over the past five years, Currys' ROCE and capital employed have both remained mostly flat. Businesses with these traits tend to be mature and steady operations because they're past the growth phase. So unless we see a substantial change at Currys in terms of ROCE and additional investments being made, we wouldn't hold our breath on it being a multi-bagger.

What We Can Learn From Currys' ROCE

In a nutshell, Currys has been trudging along with the same returns from the same amount of capital over the last five years. And in the last five years, the stock has given away 54% so the market doesn't look too hopeful on these trends strengthening any time soon. Therefore based on the analysis done in this article, we don't think Currys has the makings of a multi-bagger.

If you want to continue researching Currys, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.

While Currys may not currently earn the highest returns, we've compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here.

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.

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