"Thats fair enough, but in times of higher than desirable inflation which is causing pain to mortgage holders then the big companies should exercise their social responsibilities and chip in where they can. It's not the time for record profits...profits by all means, but not record profits."
What if they have deployed record amounts of capital?
Can they not earn record profits if they've invested record amounts of funds into their business?
And exercise in basic financial literacy might help to inform the debate (source documentation WOW and COL audited financial statements contained in their 2023 Annual Reports):
WOW in FY2023 reported profits of $1.6bn. To generate those profits it has deployed $33.6bn of assets.
So the Return on Assets is $1.6bn/$33.6b = 4.8%
In the case of COLEs, its FY2023 profit was $1.1bn, generated on $18.3bn of Assets
So Return on Assets is $1.1bn/$18.3bn = 6.0%
Given the cost of capital for those sorts of businesses is very close to those levels, do you expect them (or any business for that matter) to generate financial returns on capital which is lower than the cost of the capital they deploy?
