Investors Will Want Quick Heal Technologies' (NSE:QUICKHEAL) Growth In ROCE To Persist

What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount 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 on that note, Quick Heal Technologies (NSE:QUICKHEAL) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.

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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Quick Heal Technologies:

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

0.16 = ₹1.2b ÷ (₹8.3b - ₹740m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2021).

Thus, Quick Heal Technologies has an ROCE of 16%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Software industry average of 13% it's much better.

View our latest analysis for Quick Heal Technologies

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 Quick Heal Technologies, check out these free graphs here.

The Trend Of ROCE

Quick Heal Technologies is showing promise given that its ROCE is trending up and to the right. Looking at the data, we can see that even though capital employed in the business has remained relatively flat, the ROCE generated has risen by 31% over the last five years. So it's likely that the business is now reaping the full benefits of its past investments, since the capital employed hasn't changed considerably. On that front, things are looking good so it's worth exploring what management has said about growth plans going forward.

In Conclusion...

As discussed above, Quick Heal Technologies appears to be getting more proficient at generating returns since capital employed has remained flat but earnings (before interest and tax) are up. Since the stock has only returned 1.7% to shareholders over the last five years, the promising fundamentals may not be recognized yet by investors. Given that, we'd look further into this stock in case it has more traits that could make it multiply in the long term.

On a final note, we've found 2 warning signs for Quick Heal Technologies that we think you should be aware of.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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