Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE:BABA) Has More To Do To Grow

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. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. Having said that, from a first glance at Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE:BABA) we aren't jumping out of our chairs at how returns are trending, but let's have a deeper look.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets -
Current Liabilities) 0.09 = CN¥126b ÷ (CN¥1.8t - CN¥380b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

Thus, Alibaba Group Holding has an ROCE of 9.0%. On its own, that's a low figure but it's
around the 10% average generated by the Multiline Retail industry.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us
There are better returns on capital out there than what we're seeing at Alibaba Group
Holding. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 9.0% and the
business has deployed 121% more capital into its operations. This poor ROCE doesn't inspire
confidence right now, and with the increase in capital employed, it's evident that the
business isn't deploying the funds into high return investments.

Long story short, while Alibaba Group Holding has been reinvesting its capital, the returns
that it's generating haven't increased. Since the stock has declined 44% over the last five
years, investors may not be too optimistic on this trend improving either. In any case, the
stock doesn't have these traits of a multi-bagger discussed above, so if that's what you're
looking for, we think you'd have more luck elsewhere.