Return on Capital Employed

Return on capital employed (ROCE)

Indicator of profitability of the firm's capital investments. Determined by dividing Earnings Before Interest and Taxes by (capital employed plus short-term loans minus intangible assets). The idea is that this ratio should at least be greater than the cost of borrowing.

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Return on Capital Employed

A measurement of return on the investment needed for a business to function, otherwise known as capital employed, expressed as a dollar amount or a percentage. It is used to show a business' health, specifically by showing how efficiently its investments are used to create a profit. A good ROCE is one that is greater than the rate at which the company borrows.

Because capital employed has no set definition, there are different ways to calculate ROCE. Two common ways are:

ROCE = (Operating Profit Before Tax) / (Total Assets - Current Liabilities) and ROCE = ((Profit before Tax) / (Capital Employed)) * 100.

One limitation to ROCE is the fact that it does not account for depreciation of the capital employed. Because capital employed is in the denominator, a company with depreciated assets may find its ROCE increases without an actual increase in profit. It also neglects inflation, which might depress ROCE unnecessarily. See also: Return on Average Capital Employed (ROACE), Required return.