Should We Be Excited About The Trends Of Returns At DT&C (KOSDAQ:187220)?

Finding a business that has the potential to grow substantially is not easy, but it is possible if we look at a few key financial metrics. 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. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. Although, when we looked at DT&C (KOSDAQ:187220), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.

What is 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 DT&C:

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

0.013 = ₩1.8b ÷ (₩187b - ₩55b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

Therefore, DT&C has an ROCE of 1.3%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Professional Services industry average of 10%.

Check out our latest analysis for DT&C

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'd like to look at how DT&C has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

The Trend Of ROCE

We weren't thrilled with the trend because DT&C's ROCE has reduced by 79% over the last five years, while the business employed 57% more capital. However, some of the increase in capital employed could be attributed to the recent capital raising that's been completed prior to their latest reporting period, so keep that in mind when looking at the ROCE decrease. DT&C probably hasn't received a full year of earnings yet from the new funds it raised, so these figures should be taken with a grain of salt.

While on the subject, we noticed that the ratio of current liabilities to total assets has risen to 29%, which has impacted the ROCE. If current liabilities hadn't increased as much as they did, the ROCE could actually be even lower. While the ratio isn't currently too high, it's worth keeping an eye on this because if it gets particularly high, the business could then face some new elements of risk.

In Conclusion...

Even though returns on capital have fallen in the short term, we find it promising that revenue and capital employed have both increased for DT&C. These growth trends haven't led to growth returns though, since the stock has fallen 36% over the last five years. So we think it'd be worthwhile to look further into this stock given the trends look encouraging.

One final note, you should learn about the 3 warning signs we've spotted with DT&C (including 2 which are significant) .

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. 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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