ITV (LON:ITV) Is Reinvesting At Lower Rates Of Return

What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? 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. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. In light of that, when we looked at ITV (LON:ITV) and its ROCE trend, we weren't exactly thrilled.

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

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 ITV, this is the formula:

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

0.16 = UK£422m ÷ (UK£4.3b - UK£1.7b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

So, ITV has an ROCE of 16%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Media industry average of 11% it's much better.

View our latest analysis for ITV

roce

Above you can see how the current ROCE for ITV 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 report on analyst forecasts for the company.

So How Is ITV's ROCE Trending?

In terms of ITV's historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 33% over the last five years. Meanwhile, the business is utilizing more capital but this hasn't moved the needle much in terms of sales in the past 12 months, so this could reflect longer term investments. It may take some time before the company starts to see any change in earnings from these investments.

The Bottom Line On ITV's ROCE

Bringing it all together, while we're somewhat encouraged by ITV's reinvestment in its own business, we're aware that returns are shrinking. Since the stock has declined 49% over the last five years, investors may not be too optimistic on this trend improving either. In any case, the stock doesn't have these traits of a multi-bagger discussed above, so if that's what you're looking for, we think you'd have more luck elsewhere.

On a final note, we've found 2 warning signs for ITV that we think you should be aware of.

For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.

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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.