Zelan Berhad's (KLSE:ZELAN) Returns On Capital Are Heading Higher

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. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at Zelan Berhad (KLSE:ZELAN) so let's look a bit deeper.

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. To calculate this metric for Zelan Berhad, this is the formula:

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

0.093 = RM55m ÷ (RM867m - RM280m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2021).

So, Zelan Berhad has an ROCE of 9.3%. In absolute terms, that's a low return, but it's much better than the Construction industry average of 6.0%.

View our latest analysis for Zelan Berhad

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 Zelan Berhad has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

Zelan Berhad has broken into the black (profitability) and we're sure it's a sight for sore eyes. The company was generating losses five years ago, but has managed to turn it around and as we saw earlier is now earning 9.3%, which is always encouraging. On top of that, what's interesting is that the amount of capital being employed has remained steady, so the business hasn't needed to put any additional money to work to generate these higher returns. So while we're happy that the business is more efficient, just keep in mind that could mean that going forward the business is lacking areas to invest internally for growth. Because in the end, a business can only get so efficient.

In Conclusion...

In summary, we're delighted to see that Zelan Berhad has been able to increase efficiencies and earn higher rates of return on the same amount of capital. Given the stock has declined 35% in the last five years, this could be a good investment if the valuation and other metrics are also appealing. With that in mind, we believe the promising trends warrant this stock for further investigation.

Zelan Berhad does have some risks, we noticed 3 warning signs (and 1 which makes us a bit uncomfortable) we think you should know about.

For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high 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.