How Has Highway Holdings (NASDAQ:HIHO) Allocated Its Capital?

If you're looking at a mature business that's past the growth phase, what are some of the underlying trends that pop up? Typically, we'll see the trend of bothreturnon capital employed (ROCE) declining and this usually coincides with a decreasingamountof capital employed. Trends like this ultimately mean the business is reducing its investments and also earning less on what it has invested. Having said that, after a brief look, Highway Holdings (NASDAQ:HIHO) we aren't filled with optimism, but let's investigate further.

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 Highway Holdings, this is the formula:

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

0.057 = US$747k รท (US$18m - US$5.0m)(Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2020).

Thus, Highway Holdings has an ROCE of 5.7%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Machinery industry average of 9.1%.

Check out our latest analysis for Highway Holdings

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Highway Holdings' ROCE against it's prior returns. If you're interested in investigating Highway Holdings' past further, check out this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

We are a bit worried about the trend of returns on capital at Highway Holdings. About five years ago, returns on capital were 10%, however they're now substantially lower than that as we saw above. And on the capital employed front, the business is utilizing roughly the same amount of capital as it was back then. Companies that exhibit these attributes tend to not be shrinking, but they can be mature and facing pressure on their margins from competition. So because these trends aren't typically conducive to creating a multi-bagger, we wouldn't hold our breath on Highway Holdings becoming one if things continue as they have.

The Key Takeaway

In the end, the trend of lower returns on the same amount of capital isn't typically an indication that we're looking at a growth stock. Despite the concerning underlying trends, the stock has actually gained 18% over the last five years, so it might be that the investors are expecting the trends to reverse. Either way, we aren't huge fans of the current trends and so with that we think you might find better investments elsewhere.

Since virtually every company faces some risks, it's worth knowing what they are, and we've spotted 5 warning signs for Highway Holdings (of which 2 shouldn't be ignored!) that you should know about.

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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