Return on Invested Capital is an important formula we should look at when analyzing stocks. ROIC, in short, focuses on analyzing the profitability of a company.

1. What is the formula for ROIC?

Return on invested capital = net income/ (total debt + equity used by the company).

2. Where can we find the data needed to calculate ROIC?

We can find the data needed in a company’s annual reports.

If you’d like to find the trailing twelve months data, you can look at it’s past 4 quarterly earnings.

3. Why is ROIC important?

ROIC takes into account both the debt and equity used by the company to generate net income. It is important because it allows us to see a company’s ability to generate a return from employing not only its equity (which is what people normally sees) but also its debt.

For example, the above image shows both Apple and Samsung’s ROIC over the past 10 years. Based on the above ROIC, we can see that:

Apple’s ROIC has been consistently higher than Samsung’s – And evidently, Apple has been the more successful company over the past decade as compared to Samsung
Both their ROIC is fluctuating quite widely over the years – this shows that technology companies earnings can fluctuate very widely, even for a well-established and market leading companies like Samsung and Apple
Apple’s ROIC started dropping since 2012 – the most glorious days of Apple might be over since the iPhone craze days
Samsung’s ROIC has been increasing in recent times and is near Apple’s now – Samsung might have a higher ROIC than Apple for the first time in over a decade soon

Hence, ROIC can be used as a proxy of the success of a company. After all, most companies’ goal is to generate a return for shareholders.

4. How is ROIC used?

We can compare companies in the same industry and compare their ROIC with one another to see which company has better management of capital to generate returns for the company – and see how consistent they are over the years.

So I normally compare the ROIC of the target company with its competitors (in the same industry and of similar size) against one another.

The company with a higher ROIC tends to be a better company in terms of its ability to generate returns not only for the debt holders (to pay their interest) but also for the equity holders/stockholders.

5. In Summary

ROIC gives a good overall picture of the profitability of any company.

Because ultimately, most companies are made up of a combination of debt and equity. The return on invested capital metric takes into account both capital raised from debt and equity.

Looking at ROIC will allow the investor to analyze the company’s ability in % terms of how well it generates a return for using both debt and equity.

Corrections & Amplifications:

Return on invested capital = net income/ (total debt + equity used by the company) is a simplified version of ROIC for the purpose of this article.

To elaborate further, the total debt and equity used BY the company (as I indicated in the article above) means that it is the total debt and equity actually used and invested for the company.

I did not mean the total debt and equity OF the company which then will be equal to the assets of a company. Which will be more similar to return on assets or “ROA”.

There are many versions and definitions of how we could calculate the “invested capital” part in getting the ROIC of a company. One way is through formula like below:

Current portion of long-term debt and other borrowings	270	1,718
+ Noncurrent portion of long-term debt	11,317	11,031
+ Shareholders’ equity	11,709	10,953
+ Capitalized operating lease obligations *	1,339	1,187
– Cash and cash equivalents	2,643	2,512
– Net assets of discontinued operations	2	62
Invested capital	21,990	22,315
Average invested capital	22,152	22,608

Source: Investopedia

If you’d like to read further on how to calculate the company’s ROIC, you can look at both the operating and financing approach in a Credit Suisse paper here.

Otherwise, calculate what makes sense for you for the definition of “invested capital”.