Slowing Rates Of Return At CGI (TSE:GIB.A) Leave Little Room For Excitement
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. With that in mind, the ROCE of CGI (TSE:GIB.A) looks decent, right now, so lets see what the trend of returns can tell us.
Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it?
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 CGI:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.18 = CA$2.0b ÷ (CA$15b - CA$3.6b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021).
So, CGI has an ROCE of 18%. On its own, that's a standard return, however it's much better than the 6.7% generated by the IT industry.
Check out our latest analysis for CGI
Above you can see how the current ROCE for CGI compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering CGI here for free.
The Trend Of ROCE
The trend of ROCE doesn't stand out much, but returns on a whole are decent. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 18% and the business has deployed 27% more capital into its operations. Since 18% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. Over long periods of time, returns like these might not be too exciting, but with consistency they can pay off in terms of share price returns.
In Conclusion...
The main thing to remember is that CGI has proven its ability to continually reinvest at respectable rates of return. And the stock has followed suit returning a meaningful 65% to shareholders over the last five years. So even though the stock might be more "expensive" than it was before, we think the strong fundamentals warrant this stock for further research.
If you want to continue researching CGI, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.
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.
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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.
