Should You Be Impressed By ESTec's (KOSDAQ:069510) Returns on Capital?

If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. 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. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. However, after briefly looking over the numbers, we don't think ESTec (KOSDAQ:069510) has the makings of a multi-bagger going forward, but let's have a look at why that may be.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on ESTec is:

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

0.058 = ₩9.5b ÷ (₩221b - ₩56b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

So, ESTec has an ROCE of 5.8%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Consumer Durables industry average of 9.4%.

See our latest analysis for ESTec

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 ESTec, check out these free graphs here.

So How Is ESTec's ROCE Trending?

When we looked at the ROCE trend at ESTec, we didn't gain much confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 13% over the last five years. On the other hand, the company has been employing more capital without a corresponding improvement in sales in the last year, which could suggest these investments are longer term plays. It may take some time before the company starts to see any change in earnings from these investments.

On a related note, ESTec has decreased its current liabilities to 25% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. Effectively this means their suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of the business, which reduces some elements of risk. Some would claim this reduces the business' efficiency at generating ROCE since it is now funding more of the operations with its own money.

In Conclusion...

In summary, ESTec is reinvesting funds back into the business for growth but unfortunately it looks like sales haven't increased much just yet. And investors may be recognizing these trends since the stock has only returned a total of 36% to shareholders over the last five years. Therefore, if you're looking for a multi-bagger, we'd propose looking at other options.

One more thing to note, we've identified 2 warning signs with ESTec and understanding these should be part of your investment process.

While ESTec 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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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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