Our Take On The Returns On Capital At Quang Viet Enterprise (TPE:4438)

Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount of capital employed. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. However, after briefly looking over the numbers, we don't think Quang Viet Enterprise (TPE:4438) has the makings of a multi-bagger going forward, but let's have a look at why that may be.

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

Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. To calculate this metric for Quang Viet Enterprise, this is the formula:

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

0.053 = NT$494m ÷ (NT$14b - NT$4.4b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

Therefore, Quang Viet Enterprise has an ROCE of 5.3%. On its own that's a low return, but compared to the average of 4.0% generated by the Luxury industry, it's much better.

Check out our latest analysis for Quang Viet Enterprise

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Quang Viet Enterprise compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for Quang Viet Enterprise.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Quang Viet Enterprise Tell Us?

In terms of Quang Viet Enterprise's historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 31% over the last five years. And considering revenue has dropped while employing more capital, we'd be cautious. This could mean that the business is losing its competitive advantage or market share, because while more money is being put into ventures, it's actually producing a lower return - "less bang for their buck" per se.

On a side note, Quang Viet Enterprise has done well to pay down its current liabilities to 32% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. What's more, this can reduce some aspects of risk to the business because now the company's suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of its operations. Since the business is basically funding more of its operations with it's own money, you could argue this has made the business less efficient at generating ROCE.

The Bottom Line

In summary, we're somewhat concerned by Quang Viet Enterprise's diminishing returns on increasing amounts of capital. Investors haven't taken kindly to these developments, since the stock has declined 35% from where it was five years ago. Unless there is a shift to a more positive trajectory in these metrics, we would look elsewhere.

On a separate note, we've found 3 warning signs for Quang Viet Enterprise you'll probably want to know about.

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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