A Comparative Analysis of the Grocery Chains: Whole Foods Market and Kroger Co.

* Return on assets (ROA) – ROA shows how successful a company is in generating profits on the amount of assets they own. Since assets consist of debt and equity, ROA is a measure of how well a company converts investment dollars into profit. The higher the percentage, the more profit a company is generating per dollar of investment. Similar to ROS, this ratio needs to be looked at compared to the industry as different industries have different requirements that can affect ROA. For example, companies in the airline and mining industries need expensive assets to operate so will have lower ROA’s compared to companies in the pharmaceutical or advertising industries.

Consolidated Statements of Income (in thousands) 2003 2004 2005 Revenue Net sales Cost of goods sold Gross profit/(loss) Gross margin Operating expenses Sales and marketing Engineering and product development General and administrative Total operating expenses Operating income/loss Other income/expense Interest income/expense Other income/(expense) Income before provision for income taxes Income taxes Net income/(loss) Net margin 61,529 41,072 20,457 33.2% 64,063 43,155 20,908 32.6% 60,144 45,835 14,309 23.8%

Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are grocery retailers who have become very successful. Both these companies offer whole, natural, and quality products but operate to a wide extent particularly in terms of inventory management and supply chain organizations. Trader Joe’s has incredible inventory management and their supply chain focuses on private labels and extreme secrecy while Whole Foods has poor inventory management but their supply chain is quick, nimble and versatile. A huge competitive advantage that Whole food has is that they keep their shelves packed with about 25,00 to 45,000 products while Trader Joe’s keeps about 4,000 products. However, Trader Joes’ still made about $1,750 per square foot in 2009, more than double of what Whole

Grocery shopping is more diversified and evolved than ever before. Individuals across the nation have access to everything from exotic products to unique delivery services. Often, specialty stores have limited locations whereas specialty services have a limited reach. However, two retailers have expanded to hundreds of locations while adhering to unexpected market positioning for previously untargeted market segments. Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s have become household names while also innovating beyond regional and national traditional chains. Despite comparable size in

The purpose of this paper is to advise analyze the financial statements of Dillard’s, Inc. in order to recommend whether or not my client should invest $1 million in the large retail company. I will compare the financial statements of Dillard’s, Inc. its competitor, Kohl’s Corporation. Investing in retail can be risky because a retail company’s performance is very heavily influenced by factors that have nothing to do with the actual company such as the overall performance of the economy or the weather during the holiday shopping season. There is, however, potential for profitability within the retail sector. Based on my analysis, I recommend that the client should not invest in Dillard’s, Inc. for the following reasons. First, Dillard’s has experience a decline in net income in the last three years. Second, liquidity ratios indicate that they could face possible liquidity constraints in the future. Third, long-term debt paying ability ratios indicate that the company could have trouble paying off the principal of its current debt obligations. Fourth, the profitability ratios are well below industry averages, suggesting that there are more profitable companies to invest in within the industry. And finally, Investor analysis ratios provide mixed opinion of the future performance of the company. I conclude that retail can be a profitable industry to invest in if an investor has the risk tolerance and risk capacity to withstand the uncertainty, but neither Dillard’s

ACC 300 FSA Project Ratio Analysis of The Kroger Co. and Whole Foods Market, Inc. TEAM Jake Eriksen (002) Brycen Goldstein (002) 16 Ross Wright (001) Nicolas Kim Omar Harb (001) (002) Kroger The Kroger Co. (referred to as Kroger) is a large grocery chain audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Return on equity measures a company’s profitability by calculating how much profit a company generates with the money shareholders have invested. It is important to consider ROE and not just net income in dollar term because it helps for making comparisons among different investment amounts.

Return on equity tells you how effectively a company is using the dollars invested in it by stockholders. ROE is the most often quoted single statistic when describing a firm 's performance. It is also one of the statistics considered to be most useful by stockholders.

The setting of a business compels most when there is a viable opportunity for the firm, organization or venture to succeed. It is in this pursuit for success that most firms are seeking the service off establishing and determining the performance of the firms. Measuring firm performance has several means of doing, however, the most commonly used one is the Return on Assets (Rumelt, 2011). Return on assets is a measurement methodology that assesses various factors and matrices in the line of action. However, most firms focus on the financial side of the venture, diverting their attention from the most compelling basis of the metric method. Return on assets is a tool that requires a critical and careful selection of the base criteria for measuring the success of the firm or company. However, focusing on the financial side only leaves the investors happy but the firm stagnating.

The return on equity, ROE, is as high as 20.69% (above 15%). It illustrate that the RL Corporation uses the investors’ money pretty effectively. As of return of assets, equals to 13.10%, which reveals how much profit a company earns for every dollar of its assets. Both ROE and ROA for RL Corporation seems really good and they provide a picture that managers are doing a good job of generating return from shareholders’ investments.

The ratios returns on investment (ROI) and return on equity (ROE) are two of the most popular measure of profitability of a company and, along

This paper reviews the Cash Flow Statements of Yum Brands, Inc., Panera Bread, and Starbucks documented by case study 10-10 in our textbook for the purpose of analyzing financial health based on cash flow data. (Gibson, 2013).

The result of all the reductions of expenses on the revenues, takes us to the Net Earnings. This account reflects $12,266, $683 less than in 2008, but $1,690 more than 2007.

First of all, return on asset (ROA) is a ratio used to measure how efficient a company generates profit using its assets, which is the invested capital. We noticed that HH’s ROA was increasing from 2006 to 2010. However, HH’s ROA for 2011 dropped dramatically from 18.41%(year

One of the most important profitability metrics is return on equity. Return on equity reveals how much profit a company earned in comparison to the total amount of shareholder equity. It’s what the shareholders “own”. A business that has a high return on equity is more likely to be one that is capable of generating cash internally. For the most part, the higher a company’s return on equity compared to its industry, the better.