Fluor (NYSE:FLR) Might Have The Makings Of A Multi-Bagger

If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at Fluor (NYSE:FLR) so let's look a bit deeper.

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 Fluor is:

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

0.079 = US$317m ÷ (US$7.2b - US$3.1b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

Thus, Fluor has an ROCE of 7.9%. On its own, that's a low figure but it's around the 9.8% average generated by the Construction industry.

See our latest analysis for Fluor

In the above chart we have measured Fluor's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Fluor here for free.

So How Is Fluor's ROCE Trending?

We're pretty happy with how the ROCE has been trending at Fluor. We found that the returns on capital employed over the last five years have risen by 22%. That's not bad because this tells for every dollar invested (capital employed), the company is increasing the amount earned from that dollar. Speaking of capital employed, the company is actually utilizing 27% less than it was five years ago, which can be indicative of a business that's improving its efficiency. A business that's shrinking its asset base like this isn't usually typical of a soon to be multi-bagger company.

Another thing to note, Fluor has a high ratio of current liabilities to total assets of 44%. This can bring about some risks because the company is basically operating with a rather large reliance on its suppliers or other sorts of short-term creditors. Ideally we'd like to see this reduce as that would mean fewer obligations bearing risks.

In Conclusion...

In summary, it's great to see that Fluor has been able to turn things around and earn higher returns on lower amounts of capital. Considering the stock has delivered 5.6% 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. Given that, we'd look further into this stock in case it has more traits that could make it multiply in the long term.

If you'd like to know more about Fluor, we've spotted 2 warning signs, and 1 of them is concerning.

While Fluor isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.

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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.