The Trends At S.A.I. Leisure Group (HKG:1832) That You Should Know About

If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. One common approach is to try and find a company with returns on capital employed (ROCE) that are increasing, in conjunction with a growing amount 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. Having said that, from a first glance at S.A.I. Leisure Group (HKG:1832) we aren't jumping out of our chairs at how returns are trending, but let's have a deeper look.

What is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for S.A.I. Leisure Group, this is the formula:

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

0.046 = US$5.6m ÷ (US$136m - US$14m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

Thus, S.A.I. Leisure Group has an ROCE of 4.6%. On its own that's a low return, but compared to the average of 3.5% generated by the Hospitality industry, it's much better.

Check out our latest analysis for S.A.I. Leisure Group

While the past is not representative of the future, it can be helpful to know how a company has performed historically, which is why we have this chart above. If you want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of S.A.I. Leisure Group, check out these free graphs here.

How Are Returns Trending?

In terms of S.A.I. Leisure Group's historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. Over the last four years, returns on capital have decreased to 4.6% from 26% four years ago. Given the business is employing more capital while revenue has slipped, this is a bit concerning. If this were to continue, you might be looking at a company that is trying to reinvest for growth but is actually losing market share since sales haven't increased.

Our Take On S.A.I. Leisure Group's ROCE

We're a bit apprehensive about S.A.I. Leisure Group because despite more capital being deployed in the business, returns on that capital and sales have both fallen. It should come as no surprise then that the stock has fallen 63% over the last year, so it looks like investors are recognizing these changes. Unless there is a shift to a more positive trajectory in these metrics, we would look elsewhere.

S.A.I. Leisure Group does come with some risks though, we found 5 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those makes us a bit uncomfortable...

While S.A.I. Leisure Group 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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