If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look 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. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at Hain Celestial Group (NASDAQ:HAIN) so let's look a bit deeper.

Understanding 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 Hain Celestial Group, this is the formula:

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

0.05 = US$91m ÷ (US$2.1b - US$282m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Thus, Hain Celestial Group has an ROCE of 5.0%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Food industry average of 11%.

Check out our latest analysis for Hain Celestial Group

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Hain Celestial Group compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free analyst report for Hain Celestial Group .

What Does the ROCE Trend For Hain Celestial Group 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 30% over the last five years. Basically the business is generating higher returns from the same amount of capital and that is proof that there are improvements in the company's efficiencies. On that front, things are looking good so it's worth exploring what management has said about growth plans going forward.

In Conclusion...

To bring it all together, Hain Celestial Group has done well to increase the returns it's generating from its capital employed. And since the stock has fallen 63% over the last five years, there might be an opportunity here. So researching this company further and determining whether or not these trends will continue seems justified.

One more thing to note, we've identified 1 warning sign with Hain Celestial Group and understanding this should be part of your investment process.