We'd all like to invest like the legendary Warren Buffett, turning thousands into millions or more. Buffett analyzes companies by calculating return on invested capital (ROIC) to help determine whether a company has an economic moat -- the ability to earn returns on its money above that money's cost.
ROIC is perhaps the most important metric in value investing. By determining a company's ROIC, you can see how well it's using the cash you entrust to it and whether it's creating value for you. Simply, it divides a company's operating profit by how much investment it took to get that profit. The formula is
ROIC = Net operating profit after taxes / Invested capital
See more about the nuances of the formula in further detail.
This one-size-fits-all calculation cuts out many of the legal accounting tricks (such as excessive debt) that managers use to boost earnings numbers, and it provides you with an apples-to-apples way to evaluate businesses, even across industries. The higher the ROIC, the more efficient the company uses capital.
Ultimately, we're looking for companies that can invest their money at rates that are higher than the cost of capital, which for most businesses is between 8% and 12%. Ideally, we want to see ROIC above 12%, at a minimum, and a history of increasing returns, or at least steady returns, which indicate some durability to the company's economic moat.
Let's take a look at Novartis (NYSE: NVS ) and three of its industry peers, to see how efficiently they use cash. Here are the ROIC figures for each company over a few periods.
|
Company
|
TTM
|
1 Year Ago
|
3 Years Ago
|
5 Years Ago
|
| Novartis |
11.6% |
9.9% |
12.1% |
13.3% |
| Pfizer (NYSE: PFE ) |
11.8% |
8.8% |
17.2% |
16.7% |
| GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK ) |
28% |
21.5% |
25.3% |
34.3% |
| Merck (NYSE: MRK ) |
13.9% |
7.1% |
19.7% |
19.7% |
Source: S&P Capital IQ.
Novartis' returns on invested capital are almost 2 percentage points below what they were five years ago. The other companies have also seen declines in their returns on invested capital over the same time period, though Glaxo managed to keep its numbers at a much higher level than its peers did.
Businesses with consistently high ROIC show that they're efficiently using capital. They also have the ability to treat shareholders well, because they can then use their extra cash to pay out dividends to us, buy back shares, or further invest in their franchise. And healthy and growing dividends are something that Warren Buffett has long loved.
So for more successful investments, dig a little deeper than the earnings headlines to find the company's ROIC. Add these companies to your Watchlist:
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