The following table shows four ratios derived from the financial statements of three real companies, labeled A, B, and C in the table. (They are not listed in the table in any particular order.) The real companies are:
• Brunswick Corporation, a leader in the leisure products industry that manufactures boats and marine engines, bowling and billiard products, as well as fitness equipment.
• Consolidated Edison, an electricity and natural gas company whose nonutility operations include energy marketing and fiber-optic telecommunications.
• Foot Locker, a shoe retailer with about 3,400 specialty stores in North America, Australia, and Europe. It also operates Champs Sports, an athletic wear retail chain, and a direct-to-customers business that sells through catalogs, mobile devices, and the Internet.
A B C
Operating profit margin....0.171...........0.086.............0.113
Asset turnover ratio..........0.304..........1.269..............2.025
ROA............................0.034..........0.070..............0.120
ROCE..........................0.088..........0.176..............0.168
Required:
Which company is which? Explain how you identified each company from the data in the table.