What Can The Trends At Kretam Holdings Berhad (KLSE:KRETAM) Tell Us About Their Returns?

What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? 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. So on that note, Kretam Holdings Berhad (KLSE:KRETAM) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on Kretam Holdings Berhad is:

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

0.061 = RM44m ÷ (RM798m - RM80m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

Therefore, Kretam Holdings Berhad has an ROCE of 6.2%. In absolute terms, that's a low return but it's around the Food industry average of 6.8%.

See our latest analysis for Kretam Holdings 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 want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of Kretam Holdings Berhad, check out these free graphs here.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

We're delighted to see that Kretam Holdings Berhad is reaping rewards from its investments and has now broken into profitability. While the business is profitable now, it used to be incurring losses on invested capital five years ago. At first glance, it seems the business is getting more proficient at generating returns, because over the same period, the amount of capital employed has reduced by 32%. The reduction could indicate that the company is selling some assets, and considering returns are up, they appear to be selling the right ones.

In Conclusion...

In a nutshell, we're pleased to see that Kretam Holdings Berhad has been able to generate higher returns from less capital. Considering the stock has delivered 21% to its stockholders over the last five years, it may be fair to think that investors aren't fully aware of the promising trends yet. So with that in mind, we think the stock deserves further research.

If you want to continue researching Kretam Holdings Berhad, you might be interested to know about the 2 warning signs that our analysis has discovered.

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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