Finding a business that has the potential to grow substantially is not easy, but it is possible if we look at a few key financial metrics. 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. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. With that in mind, we've noticed some promising trends at Thai Beverage (SGX:Y92) so let's look a bit deeper.

Understanding 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 Thai Beverage is:

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

0.091 = ?36b ÷ (?495b - ?98b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

Therefore, Thai Beverage has an ROCE of 9.1%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Beverage industry average of 12%.

See our latest analysis for Thai Beverage

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage .

So How Is Thai Beverage's ROCE Trending?

Thai Beverage is showing promise given that its ROCE is trending up and to the right. 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 26% 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. It's worth looking deeper into this though because while it's great that the business is more efficient, it might also mean that going forward the areas to invest internally for the organic growth are lacking.

On a side note, we noticed that the improvement in ROCE appears to be partly fueled by an increase in current liabilities. Essentially the business now has suppliers or short-term creditors funding about 20% of its operations, which isn't ideal. Keep an eye out for future increases because when the ratio of current liabilities to total assets gets particularly high, this can introduce some new risks for the business.

What We Can Learn From Thai Beverage's ROCE

To sum it up, Thai Beverage is collecting higher returns from the same amount of capital, and that's impressive. And since the stock has fallen 28% over the last five years, there might be an opportunity here. With that in mind, we believe the promising trends warrant this stock for further investigation.

One more thing: We've identified 2 warning signs with Thai Beverage (at least 1 which is concerning) , and understanding them would certainly be useful.

While Thai Beverage 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.