Returns On Capital At Chico's FAS (NYSE:CHS) Have Hit The Brakes

There are a few key trends to look for if we want to identify the next multi-bagger. 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 when we looked at Chico's FAS (NYSE:CHS), they do have a high ROCE, but we weren't exactly elated from how returns are trending.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Chico's FAS:

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

0.20 = US$152m ÷ (US$1.2b - US$420m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to October 2022).

Thus, Chico's FAS has an ROCE of 20%. On its own, that's a very good return and it's on par with the returns earned by companies in a similar industry.

See our latest analysis for Chico's FAS

In the above chart we have measured Chico's FAS' 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 Chico's FAS here for free.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

There hasn't been much to report for Chico's FAS' returns and its level of capital employed because both metrics have been steady for the past five years. It's not uncommon to see this when looking at a mature and stable business that isn't re-investing its earnings because it has likely passed that phase of the business cycle. So it may not be a multi-bagger in the making, but given the decent 20% return on capital, it'd be difficult to find fault with the business's current operations.

Another point to note, we noticed the company has increased current liabilities over the last five years. This is intriguing because if current liabilities hadn't increased to 36% of total assets, this reported ROCE would probably be less than20% because total capital employed would be higher.The 20% ROCE could be even lower if current liabilities weren't 36% of total assets, because the the formula would show a larger base of total capital employed. With that in mind, just be wary if this ratio increases in the future, because if it gets particularly high, this brings with it some new elements of risk.

The Bottom Line On Chico's FAS' ROCE

In summary, Chico's FAS isn't compounding its earnings but is generating decent returns on the same amount of capital employed. And investors appear hesitant that the trends will pick up because the stock has fallen 30% in the last five years. Therefore based on the analysis done in this article, we don't think Chico's FAS has the makings of a multi-bagger.

On a final note, we found 3 warning signs for Chico's FAS (1 shouldn't be ignored) you should be aware of.

High returns are a key ingredient to strong performance, so check out our free list ofstocks 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.