If you're not sure where to start when looking for the next multi-bagger, there are a few key trends you should keep an eye out for. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. So, when we ran our eye over Goodwin's (LON:GDWN) trend of ROCE, we liked what we saw.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Goodwin:

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

0.12 = UK￡23m ÷ (UK￡269m - UK￡84m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to October 2023).

Therefore, Goodwin has an ROCE of 12%. That's a relatively normal return on capital, and it's around the 13% generated by the Machinery industry.

View our latest analysis for Goodwin

While the past is not representative of the future, it can be helpful to know how a company has performed historically, which is why we have this chart above. If you'd like to look at how Goodwin has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of Goodwin's past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

So How Is Goodwin's ROCE Trending?

The trend of ROCE doesn't stand out much, but returns on a whole are decent. The company has consistently earned 12% for the last five years, and the capital employed within the business has risen 60% in that time. 12% is a pretty standard return, and it provides some comfort knowing that Goodwin has consistently earned this amount. Over long periods of time, returns like these might not be too exciting, but with consistency they can pay off in terms of share price returns.

The Bottom Line

In the end, Goodwin has proven its ability to adequately reinvest capital at good rates of return. On top of that, the stock has rewarded shareholders with a remarkable 163% return to those who've held over the last five years. So while investors seem to be recognizing these promising trends, we still believe the stock deserves further research.

One more thing, we've spotted 2 warning signs facing Goodwin that you might find interesting.

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.