Capital Allocation Trends At Pattern (BIT:PTR) Aren't Ideal

What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. In light of that, when we looked at Pattern (BIT:PTR) and its ROCE trend, we weren't exactly thrilled.

Understanding 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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Pattern:

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

0.10 = €3.6m ÷ (€50m - €14m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

Therefore, Pattern has an ROCE of 10%. In absolute terms, that's a pretty normal return, and it's somewhat close to the Luxury industry average of 9.1%.

Check out our latest analysis for Pattern

In the above chart we have measured Pattern's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

The Trend Of ROCE

When we looked at the ROCE trend at Pattern, we didn't gain much confidence. Over the last three years, returns on capital have decreased to 10% from 28% three years ago. However it looks like Pattern might be reinvesting for long term growth because while capital employed has increased, the company's sales haven't changed much in the last 12 months. It may take some time before the company starts to see any change in earnings from these investments.

On a side note, Pattern has done well to pay down its current liabilities to 29% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. What's more, this can reduce some aspects of risk to the business because now the company's suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of its operations. Some would claim this reduces the business' efficiency at generating ROCE since it is now funding more of the operations with its own money.

The Bottom Line

Bringing it all together, while we're somewhat encouraged by Pattern's reinvestment in its own business, we're aware that returns are shrinking. Although the market must be expecting these trends to improve because the stock has gained 37% over the last year. Ultimately, if the underlying trends persist, we wouldn't hold our breath on it being a multi-bagger going forward.

One more thing: We've identified 2 warning signs with Pattern (at least 1 which doesn't sit too well with us) , and understanding them would certainly be useful.

While Pattern 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.

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