Can American Vanguard (NYSE:AVD) Continue To Grow Its Returns On Capital?
If we want to find a potential multi-bagger, often there are underlying trends that can provide clues. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. So on that note, American Vanguard (NYSE:AVD) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.
Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)
For those who don't know, ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. The formula for this calculation on American Vanguard is:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.043 = US$23m ÷ (US$676m - US$151m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).
Thus, American Vanguard has an ROCE of 4.4%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Chemicals industry average of 7.3%.
Check out our latest analysis for American Vanguard
In the above chart we have measured American Vanguard's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
So How Is American Vanguard's ROCE Trending?
While in absolute terms it isn't a high ROCE, it's promising to see that it has been moving in the right direction. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 4.4%. The amount of capital employed has increased too, by 39%. So we're very much inspired by what we're seeing at American Vanguard thanks to its ability to profitably reinvest capital.
The Key Takeaway
In summary, it's great to see that American Vanguard can compound returns by consistently reinvesting capital at increasing rates of return, because these are some of the key ingredients of those highly sought after multi-baggers. And with a respectable 43% awarded to those who held the stock over the last five years, you could argue that these developments are starting to get the attention they deserve. In light of that, we think it's worth looking further into this stock because if American Vanguard can keep these trends up, it could have a bright future ahead.
One more thing, we've spotted 4 warning signs facing American Vanguard that you might find interesting.
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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