The Return Trends At IBEX (NASDAQ:IBEX) Look Promising

To find a multi-bagger stock, what are the underlying trends we should look for in a business? 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. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at IBEX (NASDAQ:IBEX) so let's look a bit deeper.

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 IBEX:

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

0.15 = US$27m ÷ (US$290m - US$102m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).

Therefore, IBEX has an ROCE of 15%. In absolute terms, that's a pretty normal return, and it's somewhat close to the IT industry average of 12%.

View our latest analysis for IBEX

In the above chart we have measured IBEX's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for IBEX.

What Can We Tell From IBEX's ROCE Trend?

Investors would be pleased with what's happening at IBEX. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 15%. Basically the business is earning more per dollar of capital invested and in addition to that, 259% more capital is being employed now too. The increasing returns on a growing amount of capital is common amongst multi-baggers and that's why we're impressed.

One more thing to note, IBEX has decreased current liabilities to 35% of total assets over this period, which effectively reduces the amount of funding from suppliers or short-term creditors. So this improvement in ROCE has come from the business' underlying economics, which is great to see.

The Bottom Line

A company that is growing its returns on capital and can consistently reinvest in itself is a highly sought after trait, and that's what IBEX has. Since the stock has only returned 6.1% to shareholders over the last year, the promising fundamentals may not be recognized yet by investors. Given that, we'd look further into this stock in case it has more traits that could make it multiply in the long term.

Before jumping to any conclusions though, we need to know what value we're getting for the current share price. That's where you can check out our FREE intrinsic value estimation that compares the share price and estimated value.

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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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.