Investors Will Want Comelf's (BVB:CMF) Growth In ROCE To Persist

If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. Firstly, we'll want to see a proven return on capital employed (ROCE) that is increasing, and secondly, an expanding base of capital employed. 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 Comelf (BVB:CMF) so let's look a bit deeper.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it?

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for Comelf, this is the formula:

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

0.0098 = RON850k ÷ (RON151m - RON64m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2021).

Therefore, Comelf has an ROCE of 1.0%. Even though it's in line with the industry average of 1.5%, it's still a low return by itself.

See our latest analysis for Comelf

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Comelf's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you'd like to look at how Comelf has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

So How Is Comelf's ROCE Trending?

Even though ROCE is still low in absolute terms, it's good to see it's heading in the right direction. More specifically, while the company has kept capital employed relatively flat over the last five years, the ROCE has climbed 1,077% in that same time. Basically the business is generating higher returns from the same amount of capital and that is proof that there are improvements in the company's efficiencies. The company is doing well in that sense, and it's worth investigating what the management team has planned for long term growth prospects.

On a side note, Comelf's current liabilities are still rather high at 42% of total assets. This effectively means that suppliers (or short-term creditors) are funding a large portion of the business, so just be aware that this can introduce some elements of risk. Ideally we'd like to see this reduce as that would mean fewer obligations bearing risks.

The Key Takeaway

As discussed above, Comelf appears to be getting more proficient at generating returns since capital employed has remained flat but earnings (before interest and tax) are up. Since the stock has only returned 9.5% to shareholders over the last five years, the promising fundamentals may not be recognized yet by investors. So with that in mind, we think the stock deserves further research.

If you want to continue researching Comelf, you might be interested to know about the 3 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.

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.

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