Returns On Capital At Bright Horizons Family Solutions (NYSE:BFAM) Paint An Interesting Picture

Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? 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. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. However, after briefly looking over the numbers, we don't think Bright Horizons Family Solutions (NYSE:BFAM) has the makings of a multi-bagger going forward, but let's have a look at why that may be.

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 Bright Horizons Family Solutions:

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

0.065 = US$204m ÷ (US$3.6b - US$492m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

Therefore, Bright Horizons Family Solutions has an ROCE of 6.5%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Consumer Services industry average of 8.7%.

Check out our latest analysis for Bright Horizons Family Solutions

In the above chart we have measured Bright Horizons Family Solutions' prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Bright Horizons Family Solutions Tell Us?

The trend of ROCE doesn't look fantastic because it's fallen from 8.9% five years ago, while the business's capital employed increased by 68%. Usually this isn't ideal, but given Bright Horizons Family Solutions conducted a capital raising before their most recent earnings announcement, that would've likely contributed, at least partially, to the increased capital employed figure. The funds raised likely haven't been put to work yet so it's worth watching what happens in the future with Bright Horizons Family Solutions' earnings and if they change as a result from the capital raise.

Our Take On Bright Horizons Family Solutions' ROCE

Bringing it all together, while we're somewhat encouraged by Bright Horizons Family Solutions' reinvestment in its own business, we're aware that returns are shrinking. Investors must think there's better things to come because the stock has knocked it out of the park delivering a 111% gain to shareholders who have held over the last five years. However, unless these underlying trends turn more positive, we wouldn't get our hopes up too high.

If you'd like to know more about Bright Horizons Family Solutions, we've spotted 3 warning signs, and 1 of them is potentially serious.

If you want to search for solid companies with great earnings, check out this free list of companies with good balance sheets and impressive returns on equity.

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. 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.

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