Slowing Rates Of Return At Universal Health Services (NYSE:UHS) Leave Little Room For Excitement

What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? Firstly, we'd want to identify a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and then alongside that, an ever-increasing base of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. That's why when we briefly looked at Universal Health Services' (NYSE:UHS) ROCE trend, we were pretty happy with what we saw.

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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Universal Health Services:

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

0.12 = US$1.4b ÷ (US$13b - US$2.5b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

Therefore, Universal Health Services has an ROCE of 12%. In absolute terms, that's a pretty normal return, and it's somewhat close to the Healthcare industry average of 11%.

See our latest analysis for Universal Health Services

In the above chart we have measured Universal Health Services' 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 Universal Health Services here for free.

How Are Returns Trending?

While the returns on capital are good, they haven't moved much. The company has employed 29% more capital in the last five years, and the returns on that capital have remained stable at 12%. 12% is a pretty standard return, and it provides some comfort knowing that Universal Health Services has consistently earned this amount. Stable returns in this ballpark can be unexciting, but if they can be maintained over the long run, they often provide nice rewards to shareholders.

Our Take On Universal Health Services' ROCE

The main thing to remember is that Universal Health Services has proven its ability to continually reinvest at respectable rates of return. In light of this, the stock has only gained 9.0% over the last five years for shareholders who have owned the stock in this period. So because of the trends we're seeing, we'd recommend looking further into this stock to see if it has the makings of a multi-bagger.

If you want to continue researching Universal Health Services, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.

While Universal Health Services 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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