When we're researching a company, it's sometimes hard to find the warning signs, but there are some financial metrics that can help spot trouble early. Typically, we'll see the trend of both return on capital employed (ROCE) declining and this usually coincides with a decreasing amount of capital employed. This indicates to us that the business is not only shrinking the size of its net assets, but its returns are falling as well. On that note, looking into Card Factory (LON:CARD), we weren't too upbeat about how things were going.

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. The formula for this calculation on Card Factory is:

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

0.17 = UK￡73m ÷ (UK￡577m - UK￡140m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to July 2023).

So, Card Factory has an ROCE of 17%. On its own, that's a standard return, however it's much better than the 12% generated by the Specialty Retail industry.

See our latest analysis for Card Factory

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Card Factory compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free analyst report for Card Factory .

How Are Returns Trending?

We are a bit worried about the trend of returns on capital at Card Factory. To be more specific, the ROCE was 23% five years ago, but since then it has dropped noticeably. Meanwhile, capital employed in the business has stayed roughly the flat over the period. This combination can be indicative of a mature business that still has areas to deploy capital, but the returns received aren't as high due potentially to new competition or smaller margins. So because these trends aren't typically conducive to creating a multi-bagger, we wouldn't hold our breath on Card Factory becoming one if things continue as they have.

While on the subject, we noticed that the ratio of current liabilities to total assets has risen to 24%, which has impacted the ROCE. If current liabilities hadn't increased as much as they did, the ROCE could actually be even lower. 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.