Return on Capital Quotes

Obviously, consideration of costs is key, including opportunity costs. Of course capital isn't free. It's easy to figure out your cost of borrowing, but theorists went bonkers on the cost of equity capital. They say that if you're generating a 100% return on capital, then you shouldn't invest in something that generates an 80% return on capital. It's crazy.

Over the long term, it's hard for a stock to earn a much better return that the business which underlies it earns. If the business earns six percent on capital over forty years and you hold it for that forty years, you're not going to make much different than a six percent return - even if you originally buy it at a huge discount. Conversely, if a business earns eighteen percent on capital over twenty or thirty years, even if you pay an expensive looking price, you'll end up with one hell of a result.

I think there's an awful lot of twaddle and bullshit on EVA. The whole game is to turn retained earnings into more earnings. EVA has ideas about cost of capital that make no sense. Of course, if a company generates high returns on capital and can maintain this over time, it will do well. But the mental system as a whole does not work.

CEOs are also chief capital allocators. This is a point Warren Buffett has repeatedly made: that the role management plays in allocating capital across businesses and boosting returns on that capital is a critical yet poorly recognized one.

A well-managed business will have a high return on invested capital. But that's a consequence. It's not a way to manage a business.

The ideal business is one that earns very high returns on capital and that keeps using lots of capital at those high returns. That becomes a compounding machine.

Optimizing return on capital will generate less growth than optimizing return on education.

Despite the often-heard claim of M&A synergies, acquirers lag industry peers on a variety of fundamental metrics for an extended period following an acquisition. Profit margins, earnings growth, and return on capital all decline relative to peers, while interest expense rises, as debt soars, and other “special charges” increase…. Acquirers that grow quickly pre-acquisition often underperform post-acquisition. Acquirers with the highest pre-acquisition asset growth, underperform by 5.8% one year post-close and by 13.3% after three years, while those with the highest pre- acquisition increase in shares outstanding also underperform significantly.

After careful consideration, we have decided that for our next fiscal year, we'll issue guidance on comparable store used unit sales and on earnings per share only for the full fiscal year. We will no longer issue quarterly guidance. This decision reflects our continuing focus on longer-term store, sales, and earnings growth and on return on invested capital, and our recognition that the performance in shorter-term periods can be more volatile than over the longer term. As we report our quarterly results, we plan to comment on how our performance is tracking against our annual guidance.

As an investor with small capital, one should prefer businesses that have high returns on capital and that require little incremental investment to grow.

Everything I write is designed to be milked to the last drop of revenue.