Pharma top of the ROCE league in UK

Experian, a UK information solutions company, has published a reportwhich shows that, in terms of return on capital employed for the fourth quarter of 2000, the country's pharmaceutical sector came out ahead of all other industries at 26.4%. However, the sector is well down on its peak in the first quarter of 1998, when the average ROCE of drugmakers in the UK was 42.7%.

ROSF less impressive

The report adds that productivity rose sharply in the pharmaceutical sector in the last six months of 2000, but the average return on shareholder funds among the UK's drugs companies has fallen at twice the rate of the industrial average over the last 12 months to 14.9%. It notes that ROSF is now "around half that enjoyed during the mid-1990s, which must call into question whether shareholders' interests have been best served by the mergers and acquisitions of the last few years."