When it comes to investing, there are some useful financial metrics that can warn us when a business is potentially in trouble. Businesses in decline often have two underlying trends, firstly, a declining return on capital employed (ROCE) and a declining base of capital employed. This combination can tell you that not only is the company investing less, it's earning less on what it does invest. So after we looked into Aumann (ETR:AAG), the trends above didn't look too great.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for Aumann, this is the formula:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.036 = €7.7m ÷ (€350m - €134m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

So, Aumann has an ROCE of 3.6%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Machinery industry average of 11%.

See our latest analysis for Aumann

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Aumann 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 Aumann here for free.

How Are Returns Trending?

We are a bit worried about the trend of returns on capital at Aumann. About five years ago, returns on capital were 11%, however they're now substantially lower than that as we saw above. Meanwhile, capital employed in the business has stayed roughly the flat over the period. Companies that exhibit these attributes tend to not be shrinking, but they can be mature and facing pressure on their margins from competition. If these trends continue, we wouldn't expect Aumann to turn into a multi-bagger.

On a side note, Aumann's current liabilities have increased over the last five years to 38% of total assets, effectively distorting the ROCE to some degree. Without this increase, it's likely that ROCE would be even lower than 3.6%. While the ratio isn't currently too high, it's worth keeping an eye on this because if it gets particularly high, the business could then face some new elements of risk.

Our Take On Aumann's ROCE

In summary, it's unfortunate that Aumann is generating lower returns from the same amount of capital. It should come as no surprise then that the stock has fallen 36% over the last five years, so it looks like investors are recognizing these changes. That being the case, unless the underlying trends revert to a more positive trajectory, we'd consider looking elsewhere.