Will Marston's' (LON:MARS) Growth In ROCE Persist?
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. So on that note, Marston's (LON:MARS) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.
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. To calculate this metric for Marston's, this is the formula:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.054 = UK£137m ÷ (UK£3.0b - UK£455m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2020).
Therefore, Marston's has an ROCE of 5.4%. In absolute terms, that's a low return but it's around the Hospitality industry average of 6.2%.
Check out our latest analysis for Marston's
In the above chart we have a measured Marston'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 Marston's.
The Trend Of ROCE
Marston's is showing promise given that its ROCE is trending up and to the right. More specifically, while the company has kept capital employed relatively flat over the last five years, the ROCE has climbed 23% in that same time. So our take on this is that the business has increased efficiencies to generate these higher returns, all the while not needing to make any additional investments. It's worth looking deeper into this though because while it's great that the business is more efficient, it might also mean that going forward the areas to invest internally for the organic growth are lacking.
The Bottom Line On Marston's' ROCE
To bring it all together, Marston's has done well to increase the returns it's generating from its capital employed. And since the stock has fallen 61% over the last five years, there might be an opportunity here. So researching this company further and determining whether or not these trends will continue seems justified.
Marston's does come with some risks though, we found 2 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those is significant...
For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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