Finding a business that has the potential to grow substantially is not easy, but it is possible if we look at a few key financial metrics. In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at Gibraltar Industries (NASDAQ:ROCK) so let's look a bit deeper.

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 Gibraltar Industries is:

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

0.16 = US$169m ÷ (US$1.3b - US$226m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

Thus, Gibraltar Industries has an ROCE of 16%. That's a relatively normal return on capital, and it's around the 17% generated by the Building industry.

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Gibraltar Industries compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Gibraltar Industries for free.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

The trends we've noticed at Gibraltar Industries are quite reassuring. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 16%. The amount of capital employed has increased too, by 54%. So we're very much inspired by what we're seeing at Gibraltar Industries thanks to its ability to profitably reinvest capital.

In another part of our analysis, we noticed that the company's ratio of current liabilities to total assets decreased to 18%, which broadly means the business is relying less on its suppliers or short-term creditors to fund its operations. So this improvement in ROCE has come from the business' underlying economics, which is great to see.

Our Take On Gibraltar Industries' ROCE

To sum it up, Gibraltar Industries has proven it can reinvest in the business and generate higher returns on that capital employed, which is terrific. Since the stock has returned a solid 85% to shareholders over the last five years, it's fair to say investors are beginning to recognize these changes. So given the stock has proven it has promising trends, it's worth researching the company further to see if these trends are likely to persist.

On the other side of ROCE, we have to consider valuation. That's why we have a FREE intrinsic value estimation for ROCK on our platform that is definitely worth checking out.

While Gibraltar Industries may not currently earn the highest returns, we've compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here.

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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.