If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. 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. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. So on that note, Envestnet (NYSE:ENV) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.

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. The formula for this calculation on Envestnet is:

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

0.046 = US$70m ÷ (US$1.8b - US$272m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Thus, Envestnet has an ROCE of 4.6%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Software industry average of 8.2%.

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Envestnet compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free analyst report for Envestnet .

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

While the ROCE isn't as high as some other companies out there, it's great to see it's on the up. Looking at the data, we can see that even though capital employed in the business has remained relatively flat, the ROCE generated has risen by 385% over the last five years. So our take on this is that the business has increased efficiencies to generate these higher returns, all the while not needing to make any additional investments. The company is doing well in that sense, and it's worth investigating what the management team has planned for long term growth prospects.

The Bottom Line On Envestnet's ROCE

To bring it all together, Envestnet has done well to increase the returns it's generating from its capital employed. Considering the stock has delivered 9.2% to its stockholders over the last five years, it may be fair to think that investors aren't fully aware of the promising trends yet. So exploring more about this stock could uncover a good opportunity, if the valuation and other metrics stack up.

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

While Envestnet 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.