What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? 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. However, after investigating Ramsay Health Care (ASX:RHC), we don't think it's current trends fit the mold of a multi-bagger.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

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. To calculate this metric for Ramsay Health Care, this is the formula:

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

0.056 = AU$939m ÷ (AU$21b - AU$4.2b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Thus, Ramsay Health Care has an ROCE of 5.6%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Healthcare industry average of 7.9%.

Check out our latest analysis for Ramsay Health Care

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Ramsay Health Care compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free analyst report for Ramsay Health Care .

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

In terms of Ramsay Health Care's historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. Around five years ago the returns on capital were 11%, but since then they've fallen to 5.6%. However, given capital employed and revenue have both increased it appears that the business is currently pursuing growth, at the consequence of short term returns. And if the increased capital generates additional returns, the business, and thus shareholders, will benefit in the long run.

Our Take On Ramsay Health Care's ROCE

In summary, despite lower returns in the short term, we're encouraged to see that Ramsay Health Care is reinvesting for growth and has higher sales as a result. These growth trends haven't led to growth returns though, since the stock has fallen 34% over the last five years. As a result, we'd recommend researching this stock further to uncover what other fundamentals of the business can show us.

One more thing, we've spotted 1 warning sign facing Ramsay Health Care that you might find interesting.