Yahoo Finance What Can We Learn From Anpario plc’s (LON:ANP) Investment Returns?
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Today we are going to look at Anpario plc (LON:ANP) to see whether it might be an attractive investment prospect. In particular, we'll consider its Return On Capital Employed (ROCE), as that can give us insight into how profitably the company is able to employ capital in its business.
First, we'll go over how we calculate ROCE. Then we'll compare its ROCE to similar companies. Then we'll determine how its current liabilities are affecting its ROCE.
What is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?
ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. In general, businesses with a higher ROCE are usually better quality. Ultimately, it is a useful but imperfect metric. Renowned investment researcher Michael Mauboussin has suggested that a high ROCE can indicate that 'one dollar invested in the company generates value of more than one dollar'.
How Do You Calculate Return On Capital Employed?
The formula for calculating the return on capital employed is:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
Or for Anpario:
0.12 = UK£4.2m ÷ (UK£38m - UK£3.7m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2018.)
Therefore, Anpario has an ROCE of 12%.
View our latest analysis for Anpario
Is Anpario's ROCE Good?
One way to assess ROCE is to compare similar companies. We can see Anpario's ROCE is around the 12% average reported by the Food industry. Separate from Anpario's performance relative to its industry, its ROCE in absolute terms looks satisfactory, and it may be worth researching in more depth.
The image below shows how Anpario's ROCE compares to its industry, and you can click it to see more detail on its past growth.
When considering ROCE, bear in mind that it reflects the past and does not necessarily predict the future. ROCE can be misleading for companies in cyclical industries, with returns looking impressive during the boom times, but very weak during the busts. ROCE is, after all, simply a snap shot of a single year. Future performance is what matters, and you can see analyst predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
Do Anpario's Current Liabilities Skew Its ROCE?
Current liabilities are short term bills and invoices that need to be paid in 12 months or less. Due to the way the ROCE equation works, having large bills due in the near term can make it look as though a company has less capital employed, and thus a higher ROCE than usual. To counter this, investors can check if a company has high current liabilities relative to total assets.
Anpario has total assets of UK£38m and current liabilities of UK£3.7m. Therefore its current liabilities are equivalent to approximately 9.7% of its total assets. With low current liabilities, Anpario's decent ROCE looks that much more respectable.
What We Can Learn From Anpario's ROCE
If it is able to keep this up, Anpario could be attractive. There might be better investments than Anpario out there, but you will have to work hard to find them . These promising businesses with rapidly growing earnings might be right up your alley.
I will like Anpario better if I see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.
We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.