Yahoo Finance British American Tobacco (LON:BATS) Is Reinvesting At Lower Rates Of Return
If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look 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. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. In light of that, when we looked at British American Tobacco (LON:BATS) and its ROCE trend, we weren't exactly thrilled.
Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?
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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for British American Tobacco:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.081 = UK£11b ÷ (UK£152b - UK£17b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).
Therefore, British American Tobacco has an ROCE of 8.1%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Tobacco industry average of 14%.
View our latest analysis for British American Tobacco
In the above chart we have measured British American Tobacco'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.
What Can We Tell From British American Tobacco's ROCE Trend?
When we looked at the ROCE trend at British American Tobacco, we didn't gain much confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 21% over the last five years. On the other hand, the company has been employing more capital without a corresponding improvement in sales in the last year, which could suggest these investments are longer term plays. It may take some time before the company starts to see any change in earnings from these investments.
On a side note, British American Tobacco has done well to pay down its current liabilities to 11% of total assets. That could partly explain why the ROCE has dropped. What's more, this can reduce some aspects of risk to the business because now the company's suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of its operations. Since the business is basically funding more of its operations with it's own money, you could argue this has made the business less efficient at generating ROCE.
What We Can Learn From British American Tobacco's ROCE
Bringing it all together, while we're somewhat encouraged by British American Tobacco's reinvestment in its own business, we're aware that returns are shrinking. And investors may be recognizing these trends since the stock has only returned a total of 2.0% to shareholders over the last five years. So if you're looking for a multi-bagger, the underlying trends indicate you may have better chances elsewhere.
If you want to continue researching British American Tobacco, you might be interested to know about the 2 warning signs 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.
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