What financial metrics can indicate to us that a company is maturing or even in decline? When we see a declining return on capital employed (ROCE) in conjunction with a declining base of capital employed, that's often how a mature business shows signs of aging. Ultimately this means that the company is earning less per dollar invested and on top of that, it's shrinking its base of capital employed. On that note, looking into Saga Communications (NASDAQ:SGA), we weren't too upbeat about how things were going.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

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 Saga Communications:

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

0.063 = US$14m ÷ (US$234m - US$18m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

Therefore, Saga Communications has an ROCE of 6.3%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Media industry average of 8.2%.

View our latest analysis for Saga Communications

In the above chart we have measured Saga Communications' prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Saga Communications here for free.

So How Is Saga Communications' ROCE Trending?

There is reason to be cautious about Saga Communications, given the returns are trending downwards. Unfortunately the returns on capital have diminished from the 8.3% that they were earning five years ago. On top of that, it's worth noting that the amount of capital employed within the business has remained relatively steady. This combination can be indicative of a mature business that still has areas to deploy capital, but the returns received aren't as high due potentially to new competition or smaller margins. If these trends continue, we wouldn't expect Saga Communications to turn into a multi-bagger.

In Conclusion...

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 7.4% over the last five years, so it might be that the investors are expecting the trends to reverse. Regardless, we don't like the trends as they are and if they persist, we think you might find better investments elsewhere.