Benzinga | Mar 24, 2021 09:30AM EDT

Looking Into Bank of New York Mellon's Return On Capital Employed





Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:BK) posted a 21.95% decrease in earnings from Q3. Sales, however, increased by 1.48% over the previous quarter to $3.90 billion. Despite the increase in sales this quarter, the decrease in earnings may suggest Bank of New York Mellon is not utilizing their capital as effectively as possible. Bank of New York Mellon reached earnings of $1.16 billion and sales of $3.85 billion in Q3.

What Is Return On Capital Employed?

Return on Capital Employed is a measure of yearly pre-tax profit relative to capital employed by a business. Changes in earnings and sales indicate shifts in a company's ROCE. A higher ROCE is generally representative of successful growth of a company and is a sign of higher earnings per share in the future. A low or negative ROCE suggests the opposite. In Q4, Bank of New York Mellon posted an ROCE of 0.02%.

Keep in mind, while ROCE is a good measure of a company's recent performance, it is not a highly reliable predictor of a company's earnings or sales in the near future.

ROCE is an important metric for the comparison of similar companies. A relatively high ROCE shows Bank of New York Mellon is potentially operating at a higher level of efficiency than other companies in its industry. If the company is generating high profits with its current level of capital, some of that money can be reinvested in more capital which will generally lead to higher returns and earnings per share growth.

For Bank of New York Mellon, the return on capital employed ratio shows the number of assets can actually help the company achieve higher returns, an important note investors will take into account when gauging the payoff from long-term financing strategies.

Q4 Earnings Recap

Bank of New York Mellon reported Q4 earnings per share at $0.96/share, which beat analyst predictions of $0.91/share.