Benzinga | Jul 21, 2021 11:10AM EDT

Return on Capital Employed Overview: Walgreens Boots Alliance

After pulling data from Benzinga Pro it seems like during Q3, Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) earned $1.04 billion, a 24.64% increase from the preceding quarter. Walgreens Boots Alliance also posted a total of $34.03 billion in sales, a 3.82% increase since Q2. Walgreens Boots Alliance earned $832.00 million, and sales totaled $32.78 billion in Q2.

What Is ROCE?

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 Q3, Walgreens Boots Alliance posted an ROCE of 0.05%.

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 Walgreens Boots Alliance 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.

In Walgreens Boots Alliance's case, the positive ROCE ratio will be something investors pay attention to before making long-term financial decisions.

Upcoming Earnings Estimate

Walgreens Boots Alliance reported Q3 earnings per share at $1.38/share, which beat analyst predictions of $1.17/share.