If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. One common approach is to try and find a company with returns on capital employed (ROCE) that are increasing, in conjunction with a growing 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. So, when we ran our eye over Carl Zeiss Meditec's (ETR:AFX) trend of ROCE, we liked what we saw.

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 Carl Zeiss Meditec, this is the formula:

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

0.13 = €318m ÷ (€2.9b - €507m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

Thus, Carl Zeiss Meditec has an ROCE of 13%. On its own, that's a standard return, however it's much better than the 7.3% generated by the Medical Equipment industry.

See our latest analysis for Carl Zeiss Meditec

In the above chart we have measured Carl Zeiss Meditec'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 analyst report for Carl Zeiss Meditec .

What Does the ROCE Trend For Carl Zeiss Meditec Tell Us?

The trend of ROCE doesn't stand out much, but returns on a whole are decent. The company has employed 54% more capital in the last five years, and the returns on that capital have remained stable at 13%. 13% is a pretty standard return, and it provides some comfort knowing that Carl Zeiss Meditec 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 Key Takeaway

The main thing to remember is that Carl Zeiss Meditec has proven its ability to continually reinvest at respectable rates of return. However, over the last five years, the stock has only delivered a 13% return to shareholders who held over that period. So because of the trends we're seeing, we'd recommend looking further into this stock to see if it has the makings of a multi-bagger.

If you're still interested in Carl Zeiss Meditec it's worth checking out our FREE intrinsic value approximation for AFX to see if it's trading at an attractive price in other respects.