Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? 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. Put simply, these types of businesses are compounding machines, meaning they are continually reinvesting their earnings at ever-higher rates of return. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at Semrush Holdings (NYSE:SEMR) so let's look a bit deeper.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for Semrush Holdings, this is the formula:

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

0.034 = US$9.2m ÷ (US$384m - US$113m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

Therefore, Semrush Holdings has an ROCE of 3.4%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Software industry average of 9.1%.

In the above chart we have measured Semrush Holdings' prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free analyst report for Semrush Holdings .

So How Is Semrush Holdings' ROCE Trending?

Semrush Holdings has recently broken into profitability so their prior investments seem to be paying off. Shareholders would no doubt be pleased with this because the business was loss-making four years ago but is is now generating 3.4% on its capital. Not only that, but the company is utilizing 1,917% more capital than before, but that's to be expected from a company trying to break into profitability. This can tell us that the company has plenty of reinvestment opportunities that are able to generate higher returns.

In another part of our analysis, we noticed that the company's ratio of current liabilities to total assets decreased to 29%, which broadly means the business is relying less on its suppliers or short-term creditors to fund its operations. So shareholders would be pleased that the growth in returns has mostly come from underlying business performance.

What We Can Learn From Semrush Holdings' ROCE

To the delight of most shareholders, Semrush Holdings has now broken into profitability. Astute investors may have an opportunity here because the stock has declined 42% in the last three years. That being the case, research into the company's current valuation metrics and future prospects seems fitting.

If you want to continue researching Semrush Holdings, you might be interested to know about the 2 warning signs that our analysis has discovered.

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.

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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.