Radico Khaitan's (NSE:RADICO) Returns Have Hit A Wall

To find a multi-bagger stock, what are the underlying trends we should look for in a business? 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. That's why when we briefly looked at Radico Khaitan's (NSE:RADICO) ROCE trend, we were pretty happy with what we saw.

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. The formula for this calculation on Radico Khaitan is:

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

0.14 = ₹3.1b ÷ (₹32b - ₹9.5b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2022).

Therefore, Radico Khaitan has an ROCE of 14%. That's a pretty standard return and it's in line with the industry average of 14%.

Check out our latest analysis for Radico Khaitan

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Radico Khaitan's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you're interested in investigating Radico Khaitan's past further, check out this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Radico Khaitan Tell Us?

While the current returns on capital are decent, they haven't changed much. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 14% and the business has deployed 82% more capital into its operations. Since 14% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. Over long periods of time, returns like these might not be too exciting, but with consistency they can pay off in terms of share price returns.

On a side note, Radico Khaitan has done well to reduce current liabilities to 29% of total assets over the last five years. Effectively suppliers now fund less of the business, which can lower some elements of risk.

What We Can Learn From Radico Khaitan's ROCE

In the end, Radico Khaitan has proven its ability to adequately reinvest capital at good rates of return. On top of that, the stock has rewarded shareholders with a remarkable 283% return to those who've held over the last five years. So while investors seem to be recognizing these promising trends, we still believe the stock deserves further research.

Radico Khaitan could be trading at an attractive price in other respects, so you might find our free intrinsic value estimation on our platform quite valuable.

If you want to search for solid companies with great earnings, check out this free list of companies with good balance sheets and impressive returns on equity.

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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.