Firm Performance as a Compelling Measure of Growth: Whole Foods Case Study

Return on assets is an efficiency ratio. It compares the profits generated with the asset base required. It answers the question, how hard

Total asset turnover : This ratio measures the efficiency of a company’s use of its assets

I. Rate of Return on Total Assets: Measures the company’s profitability relative to total assets. A percentage increment for Company G, from 12.30% to 13.68% (2011-12) keeps them above industry benchmarks (8.60% and 12.30%). Rate of Return on Total Assets represents strength for Company G.

Financial performance measures, such as operating income and return on investment, indicate whether the company’s strategy

Rate of return on total assets: This ratio compares the operating income against the total net assets. This can show how effective the company is in utilizing its assets prior to paying taxes. To determine this ratio take the net income and add the interest expense and divide those by the average total assets. In year 11 that rate was 12.30% and year 12 only showed a 2.48% increase to 14.78%. This rate has stayed consistent between the last 2 years and is trending in the right direction even if it is slow. I would consider this strength at this time because it is below the upper quartile of 17.2 but above the median quartile and lower quartiles of 12.3 and 8.6.

Rate of Return on equity measures a corporation 's profitability by revealing how much profit a company generates with the money shareholders have invested. It indicates how efficiently the business uses its investment funds. For Tesco, Rate of Return on Shareholders’ Fund has increased from 13.85% in 2004 to 14.91% in 2009. This shows an improvement of 1.06% in five years period. When one examines the Sainsbury’s Rate of Return on Shareholders’ Fund, there is an increase from 7.76% to 8.36%. There is a 0.6% growth in the Rate of Return on Shareholders’ Fund. In comparison with Tesco, Sainsbury’s Rate of Return on Shareholders’ Fund is lower. Shareholders earned 13.85% from their investment (measured in book value

Also, according to its leverage ratios, the company’s debts are not only very high, but are also increasing. Its decreasing TIE ratio indicates that its capability to pay interests is decreasing. The company’s efficiency ratios indicate that despite the fact that its fixed assets are increasingly being utilized to generate sales during the years 1990-1991 as indicated by its increasing fixed asset turnover ratio, the decreasing total assets turnover indicate that overall the company’s total assets are not efficiently being put to use. Thus, as a whole its asset management is becoming less efficient. Last but not the least, based on its profitability ratios, the company’s ability to make profit is decreasing.

Using the WACC method, we first derived UST’s return on assets (rA). Since we are given the firm’s market capitalization, debt and cash, we calculated the current Enterprive Value of UST. We were then able to derive the return on asset as a function of UST’s market value. Specifically, we followed the below steps:

Historically, the Du Pont innovation of (ROI) calculations represents one of the most significant turning points in the history of modern accounting and management, (Hounshell, 1998 ). The 1920’s began the Du Pont system company with methods and calculations from leaders, owners, executives, etc. Furthermore, it was the beginning of the integration of financial accounting, capital accounting, and cost accounting. When it comes to return on assets (ROA), they are a (ROI) measure that evaluates the organization’s return or net income relative to the asset base need to generate the income, (Finkler, Ward, & Calabrese, 2013). The Du Pont Company has been the leader of industrial research. Throughout the years with companies emerging, Du Pont’s method was becoming more prominent with owners and executives needing a method for

This tells us what the company can do with what it has, i.e. how many dollars of earnings they derive from each dollar of assets they control. Return on assets gives an indication of the capital intensity of the company, which will depend on the industry; As Star River requires large initial investments it generally has lower return on assets.

There are many ways to analyze the performance of a company, some more popular than others. According to the Barney text the accounting method is the most popular way of measuring a firm's performance (Barney, 2002). Some of the reasons for the popularity could include the fact that accounting measures of performance are publicly available on many firms and they communicate a great deal of information about a firm's operations. Other methods of performance analysis include firm survival and the multiple stakeholder approach.

In addition to both short and long term solvency, a company’s return on invested capital should be analyzed when determining its financial health. Ford’s

The ratios returns on investment (ROI) and return on equity (ROE) are two of the most popular measure of profitability of a company and, along

Mueller (1986) suggests tough high-profit firms decrease return on asset while low-profit firms increase the figure annually, they will not converge to a common mean because there is distinct resources usage besides market force. As a source of comparative advantage, RBV implies that the ability for a firm to create more values than its competitors depends on its stock of resources and capabilities arise from using those resources. Besides, RBV suggests these resources and capabilities shall be difficult to obtain from other firms, i.e. scarcity

The results of the company’s return on assets ratio measuring profitability overall was 7.2% in 2010 and 8.1% in 2011 having an increase of 0.9%. Return of common stock ratio that portrays the