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. That's why when we briefly looked at Winpak's (TSE:WPK) ROCE trend, we were pretty happy with what we saw.

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. The formula for this calculation on Winpak is:

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

0.12 = US$179m ÷ (US$1.6b - US$94m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

So, Winpak has an ROCE of 12%. That's a pretty standard return and it's in line with the industry average of 12%.

View our latest analysis for Winpak

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Winpak 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 Winpak .

The Trend Of ROCE

While the current returns on capital are decent, they haven't changed much. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 12% and the business has deployed 45% more capital into its operations. Since 12% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. Stable returns in this ballpark can be unexciting, but if they can be maintained over the long run, they often provide nice rewards to shareholders.

The Key Takeaway

To sum it up, Winpak has simply been reinvesting capital steadily, at those decent rates of return. In light of this, the stock has only gained 1.2% over the last five years for shareholders who have owned the stock in this period. So to determine if Winpak is a multi-bagger going forward, we'd suggest digging deeper into the company's other fundamentals.

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

While Winpak isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.