28-04-2025
Ascom Holding (VTX:ASCN) Shareholders Will Want The ROCE Trajectory To Continue
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. Typically, we'll want to notice a trend of growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and alongside that, an expanding base of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. So on that note, Ascom Holding (VTX:ASCN) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.
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Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?
Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. To calculate this metric for Ascom Holding, this is the formula:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.073 = CHF7.6m ÷ (CHF190m - CHF86m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).
Thus, Ascom Holding has an ROCE of 7.3%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Healthcare Services industry average of 13%.
View our latest analysis for Ascom Holding
SWX:ASCN Return on Capital Employed April 28th 2025
Above you can see how the current ROCE for Ascom Holding compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Ascom Holding for free.
The Trend Of ROCE
Ascom Holding has broken into the black (profitability) and we're sure it's a sight for sore eyes. The company was generating losses five years ago, but has managed to turn it around and as we saw earlier is now earning 7.3%, which is always encouraging. On top of that, what's interesting is that the amount of capital being employed has remained steady, so the business hasn't needed to put any additional money to work to generate these higher returns. With no noticeable increase in capital employed, it's worth knowing what the company plans on doing going forward in regards to reinvesting and growing the business. After all, a company can only become a long term multi-bagger if it continually reinvests in itself at high rates of return.
One more thing to note, Ascom Holding has decreased current liabilities to 45% of total assets over this period, which effectively reduces the amount of funding from suppliers or short-term creditors. So this improvement in ROCE has come from the business' underlying economics, which is great to see. Nevertheless, there are some potential risks the company is bearing with current liabilities that high, so just keep that in mind.
