Shareholders Would Enjoy A Repeat Of Wheels India's (NSE:WHEELS) Recent Growth In Returns

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. Typically, we'll want to notice a trend of growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and alongside that, an expanding base of capital employed. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. So when we looked at the ROCE trend of Wheels India (NSE:WHEELS) we really liked what we saw.

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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. To calculate this metric for Wheels India, this is the formula:

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

0.21 = ₹2.7b ÷ (₹33b - ₹20b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2025).

Therefore, Wheels India has an ROCE of 21%. That's a fantastic return and not only that, it outpaces the average of 13% earned by companies in a similar industry.

View our latest analysis for Wheels India

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're interested in investigating Wheels India's past further, check out this free graph covering Wheels India's past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

How Are Returns Trending?

The trends we've noticed at Wheels India are quite reassuring. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 21%. The company is effectively making more money per dollar of capital used, and it's worth noting that the amount of capital has increased too, by 34%. So we're very much inspired by what we're seeing at Wheels India thanks to its ability to profitably reinvest capital.

On a separate but related note, it's important to know that Wheels India has a current liabilities to total assets ratio of 60%, which we'd consider pretty high. This can bring about some risks because the company is basically operating with a rather large reliance on its suppliers or other sorts of short-term creditors. Ideally we'd like to see this reduce as that would mean fewer obligations bearing risks.

Our Take On Wheels India's ROCE

In summary, it's great to see that Wheels India can compound returns by consistently reinvesting capital at increasing rates of return, because these are some of the key ingredients of those highly sought after multi-baggers. And with the stock having performed exceptionally well over the last five years, these patterns are being accounted for by investors. So given the stock has proven it has promising trends, it's worth researching the company further to see if these trends are likely to persist.

One final note, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Wheels India (including 1 which is a bit concerning) .

Wheels India 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.