Yahoo Finance Here's What To Make Of XLMedia's (LON:XLM) Returns On Capital
To find a multi-bagger stock, what are the underlying trends we should look for in a business? 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. However, after briefly looking over the numbers, we don't think XLMedia (LON:XLM) has the makings of a multi-bagger going forward, but let's have a look at why that may be.
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. The formula for this calculation on XLMedia is:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.19 = US$14m ÷ (US$95m - US$24m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).
So, XLMedia has an ROCE of 19%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Interactive Media and Services industry average of 5.2% it's much better.
View our latest analysis for XLMedia
In the above chart we have measured XLMedia's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for XLMedia.
What Does the ROCE Trend For XLMedia Tell Us?
Things have been pretty stable at XLMedia, with its capital employed and returns on that capital staying somewhat the same for the last five years. Businesses with these traits tend to be mature and steady operations because they're past the growth phase. So unless we see a substantial change at XLMedia in terms of ROCE and additional investments being made, we wouldn't hold our breath on it being a multi-bagger. With fewer investment opportunities, it makes sense that XLMedia has been paying out a decent 50% of its earnings to shareholders. Unless businesses have highly compelling growth opportunities, they'll typically return some money to shareholders.
What We Can Learn From XLMedia's ROCE
We can conclude that in regards to XLMedia's returns on capital employed and the trends, there isn't much change to report on. And in the last five years, the stock has given away 56% so the market doesn't look too hopeful on these trends strengthening any time soon. All in all, the inherent trends aren't typical of multi-baggers, so if that's what you're after, we think you might have more luck elsewhere.
One final note, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with XLMedia (including 1 which is doesn't sit too well with us) .
While XLMedia isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.
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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