If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. 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, the ROCE of IES Holdings (NASDAQ:IESC) looks great, so lets see what the trend can tell us.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for IES Holdings:

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

0.41 = US$281m ÷ (US$1.2b - US$474m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Therefore, IES Holdings has an ROCE of 41%. That's a fantastic return and not only that, it outpaces the average of 11% earned by companies in a similar industry.

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for IES Holdings' ROCE against it's prior returns. If you want to delve into the historical earnings , check out these free graphs detailing revenue and cash flow performance of IES Holdings.

How Are Returns Trending?

Investors would be pleased with what's happening at IES Holdings. The numbers show that in the last five years, the returns generated on capital employed have grown considerably to 41%. The company is effectively making more money per dollar of capital used, and it's worth noting that the amount of capital has increased too, by 170%. The increasing returns on a growing amount of capital is common amongst multi-baggers and that's why we're impressed.

On a separate but related note, it's important to know that IES Holdings has a current liabilities to total assets ratio of 41%, which we'd consider pretty high. This effectively means that suppliers (or short-term creditors) are funding a large portion of the business, so just be aware that this can introduce some elements of risk. Ideally we'd like to see this reduce as that would mean fewer obligations bearing risks.

The Bottom Line On IES Holdings' ROCE

In summary, it's great to see that IES Holdings can compound returns by consistently reinvesting capital at increasing rates of return, because these are some of the key ingredients of those highly sought after multi-baggers. Since the stock has returned a staggering 947% to shareholders over the last five years, it looks like investors are recognizing these changes. In light of that, we think it's worth looking further into this stock because if IES Holdings can keep these trends up, it could have a bright future ahead.

One more thing to note, we've identified 1 warning sign with IES Holdings and understanding it should be part of your investment process.

High returns are a key ingredient to strong performance, so check out our free list ofstocks 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.