Is Pelikan International Corporation Berhad (KLSE:PELIKAN) A Future Multi-bagger?

If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look 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. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at Pelikan International Corporation Berhad (KLSE:PELIKAN) so let's look a bit deeper.

What is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

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. The formula for this calculation on Pelikan International Corporation Berhad is:

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

0.037 = RM33m ÷ (RM1.3b - RM454m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

So, Pelikan International Corporation Berhad has an ROCE of 3.7%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Commercial Services industry average of 4.9%.

Check out our latest analysis for Pelikan International Corporation Berhad

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Pelikan International Corporation Berhad's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you're interested in investigating Pelikan International Corporation Berhad's past further, check out this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What Can We Tell From Pelikan International Corporation Berhad's ROCE Trend?

Shareholders will be relieved that Pelikan International Corporation Berhad has broken into profitability. The company was generating losses five years ago, but has managed to turn it around and as we saw earlier is now earning 3.7%, which is always encouraging. Interestingly, the capital employed by the business has remained relatively flat, so these higher returns are either from prior investments paying off or increased efficiencies. That being said, while an increase in efficiency is no doubt appealing, it'd be helpful to know if the company does have any investment plans going forward. After all, a company can only become a long term multi-bagger if it continually reinvests in itself at high rates of return.

On a related note, the company's ratio of current liabilities to total assets has decreased to 34%, which basically reduces it's funding from the likes of short-term creditors or suppliers. This tells us that Pelikan International Corporation Berhad has grown its returns without a reliance on increasing their current liabilities, which we're very happy with.

The Bottom Line

As discussed above, Pelikan International Corporation Berhad appears to be getting more proficient at generating returns since capital employed has remained flat but earnings (before interest and tax) are up. And since the stock has fallen 66% over the last five years, there might be an opportunity here. That being the case, research into the company's current valuation metrics and future prospects seems fitting.

Pelikan International Corporation Berhad does come with some risks though, we found 2 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those is a bit concerning...

While Pelikan International Corporation Berhad 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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