The Trends At Rollins (NYSE:ROL) That You Should Know About
If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. 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. Put simply, these types of businesses are compounding machines, meaning they are continually reinvesting their earnings at ever-higher rates of return. Having said that, while the ROCE is currently high for Rollins (NYSE:ROL), we aren't jumping out of our chairs because returns are decreasing.
Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)
If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Rollins:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.26 = US$354m ÷ (US$1.8b - US$469m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).
So, Rollins has an ROCE of 26%. In absolute terms that's a great return and it's even better than the Commercial Services industry average of 10.0%.
View our latest analysis for Rollins
In the above chart we have measured Rollins' 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.
What Does the ROCE Trend For Rollins Tell Us?
In terms of Rollins' historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. Historically returns on capital were even higher at 40%, but they have dropped over the last five years. However it looks like Rollins might be reinvesting for long term growth because while capital employed has increased, the company's sales haven't changed much in the last 12 months. It may take some time before the company starts to see any change in earnings from these investments.
The Bottom Line On Rollins' ROCE
In summary, Rollins is reinvesting funds back into the business for growth but unfortunately it looks like sales haven't increased much just yet. Yet to long term shareholders the stock has gifted them an incredible 237% return in the last five years, so the market appears to be rosy about its future. Ultimately, if the underlying trends persist, we wouldn't hold our breath on it being a multi-bagger going forward.
If you're still interested in Rollins it's worth checking out our FREE intrinsic value approximation to see if it's trading at an attractive price in other respects.
If you'd like to see other companies earning high returns, check out our free list of companies earning high returns with solid balance sheets here.
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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