NL Industries (NYSE:NL) Is Experiencing Growth In Returns On Capital
If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. 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. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at NL Industries (NYSE:NL) 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. To calculate this metric for NL Industries, this is the formula:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.031 = US$18m ÷ (US$594m - US$27m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2023).
Thus, NL Industries has an ROCE of 3.1%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Commercial Services industry average of 8.5%.
See our latest analysis for NL Industries
Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for NL Industries' ROCE against it's prior returns. If you want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of NL Industries, check out these free graphs here.
What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us
While there are companies with higher returns on capital out there, we still find the trend at NL Industries promising. Looking at the data, we can see that even though capital employed in the business has remained relatively flat, the ROCE generated has risen by 388% over the last five years. 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. On that front, things are looking good so it's worth exploring what management has said about growth plans going forward.
In Conclusion...
To bring it all together, NL Industries has done well to increase the returns it's generating from its capital employed. Astute investors may have an opportunity here because the stock has declined 25% in the last five years. So researching this company further and determining whether or not these trends will continue seems justified.
One more thing to note, we've identified 3 warning signs with NL Industries and understanding them should be part of your investment process.
While NL Industries 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.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
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.
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