Return on Assets Highest Since Global Financial Crisis
Increased profitability across the economy in 2017 contributed to the highest return on assets since the global
financial crisis, Stats NZ said today. For all industries combined, the return on assets in the 2017 financial year was
4.4 percent.
Statistics released today from the 2017 Annual Enterprise Survey show various measures of business operations in New
Zealand. One of these measures is ‘return on assets’. Return on assets measures how profitable a company is relative to
the value of its total assets.
Since 2009, for all industries combined, the return on assets has varied from 2.6 percent to 4.4 percent, and has
averaged 3.4 percent.
The return on assets, however, is not evenly distributed across industries. Manufacturing, construction, retail trade,
and transport were among those that had increases over recent years. Mining declined, while other industries such as
financial and insurance services, and rental, hiring and real estate services industries remained relatively flat.
The return on assets varied between the primary and goods-producing industries (eg agriculture and manufacturing) and
the service industries (eg retail trade and telecommunications). For example, since 2009 the average return on assets
for primary and goods-producing industries was 4.6 percent. For the service industries, it was 3.1 percent for the same
period.
The graph below shows how the return on assets has changed since 2009, and the different contributions made by the
primary and goods-producing, and service industries.
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The Annual Enterprise Survey (AES) is New Zealand’s most comprehensive source of financial statistics covering almost
469,000 businesses. It provides annual information on the financial performance and financial position for industry
groups operating in New Zealand.
In AES 2017, more detailed information is freely available. Downloadable tables have more years of data, and our Business Performance Benchmarker now has benchmarks for over 200 industries.
Customised data information from AES is available on request. Please email our Information Centre at info@stats.govt.nz.
For more information about these statistics:
• See CSV files for download
ENDS