What is Return on Assets – ROA
The return on assets ratio, also known as the return on total assets, is a profitability ratio that compares net income to the average total assets to calculate the net income produced by total assets over a given time.
In other words, the return on assets ratio (ROA) assesses how well a firm can manage its assets to generate profits over a given time period.
Because the main objective of a company’s assets is to create revenues and profits, this ratio assists both management and investors in determining how successfully the firm can convert its asset investments into profits.
Because capital assets are frequently the largest investment for most businesses, ROA may be viewed as a return on investment for the firm. In this situation, the corporation invests money in capital assets, with profits as the return.
In a nutshell, this ratio assesses the profitability of a company’s assets.
Return On Assets Formula
Following are the formula to calculate return on assets:
ROA = Net Profit / Average Total Assets
OR
ROA = (Net Profit / Total Assets) x 100
The return on total assets may be calculated using either formula. Because asset totals might change over the year, the first formula normally uses the average total assets.
To determine the average assets for the year, sum the starting and ending assets on the balance sheet and divide them by two. It may seem simple, but the average total assets are the historical cost of the assets on the balance sheet before depreciation is taken into account.
Net profit is reported on income statements by public firms, while total assets are disclosed on monthly, quarterly, or yearly balance sheets. These figures can be found in a company’s quarterly or yearly earnings reports.
How to Calculate the Return On Assets?
Here is an example of how to calculate return on assets:
Assume a firm had a net profit of $2.5 million in 2020 and total assets of $38.5 million at the end of the year. To calculate the company’s ROA for 2020, divide $2,500,000 by $38,500,000, obtaining 0.064935.
Multiply by 100 and round up to achieve a return on assets (ROA) of 6.49 percent. This means that the firm earns 6.49 cents in profit for every dollar in assets possessed.
Return On Assets Interpretation
The return on assets ratio assesses how well a corporation can make a return on its asset investment. In other words, ROA demonstrates how well a corporation can turn the money spent on asset acquisition into net income or profits.
Because all assets are either supported by stock or debt, some investors attempt to ignore the costs of acquisition in the return calculation by including interest expenditure in the methodology.
It stands to reason that a larger ratio is more appealing to investors since it demonstrates that the firm is more successfully managing its assets to generate higher levels of net income.
A good ROA ratio typically suggests an increasing profit trend. Because assets are used differently in different businesses, ROA is most relevant when comparing organizations in the same industry.
Construction industries, for example, utilize massive, expensive equipment, whereas software developers use computers and servers.
What is a Good Return on Assets?
A ROA of 5% or above is considered good, while a ROA of 20% or more is considered excellent. The greater the ROA, in general, the more efficient the firm is at creating profits. However, the ROA of any one firm must be seen in the context of its competitors in the same industry and sector.
An asset-heavy firm, such as a manufacturing company, may have a ROA of 6%, whereas an asset-light company, such as an online dating site, may have a ROA of 15%. If you just evaluated two options based on ROA, you’d probably conclude that the website was a better investment.
However, if you compare the manufacturing business to its nearest competitors, all of which had ROAs below 4%, you may discover that it is performing significantly better than its contemporaries.
In contrast, if you compared the dating app to similar tech businesses, you’d find that most of them had ROAs closer to 20%, implying that it’s really underperforming more similar companies.
ROA Vs ROE
Return on equity (ROE) is a financial ratio that is similar to ROA in that both may be used to assess the performance of a single firm.
ROE is computed by dividing a firm’s net earnings over a certain time by shareholders’ equity. it indicates how well the company leverages the capital earned by selling stock.
If ROA looks at how effectively a firm manages its assets to produce profits, ROE looks at how well the company manages the money invested by its shareholders to generate profits.
ROE is used by investors to determine the efficiency of their investments in a public firm. ROA’s assessment of a company’s asset efficiency supplements the findings drawn from ROE.
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