To find a multi-bagger stock, what are the underlying trends we should look for in a business? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's 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. Although, when we looked at AGL Energy (ASX:AGL), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.

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

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for AGL Energy:

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

0.13 = AU$1.4b ÷ (AU$16b - AU$4.6b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

So, AGL Energy has an ROCE of 13%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Integrated Utilities industry average of 5.4% it's much better.

See our latest analysis for AGL Energy

Above you can see how the current ROCE for AGL Energy 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 AGL Energy .

The Trend Of ROCE

Things have been pretty stable at AGL Energy, with its capital employed and returns on that capital staying somewhat the same for the last five years. Businesses with these traits tend to be mature and steady operations because they're past the growth phase. So don't be surprised if AGL Energy doesn't end up being a multi-bagger in a few years time. This probably explains why AGL Energy is paying out 57% of its income to shareholders in the form of dividends. Given the business isn't reinvesting in itself, it makes sense to distribute a portion of earnings among shareholders.

Another point to note, we noticed the company has increased current liabilities over the last five years. This is intriguing because if current liabilities hadn't increased to 29% of total assets, this reported ROCE would probably be less than13% because total capital employed would be higher.The 13% ROCE could be even lower if current liabilities weren't 29% of total assets, because the the formula would show a larger base of total capital employed. With that in mind, just be wary if this ratio increases in the future, because if it gets particularly high, this brings with it some new elements of risk.