Segment capital employed

The assets less liabilities attributed to each business line, disclosed in the segment note. It is the denominator that makes segment profit interpretable.

A group earning ₹410 crore in a segment employing ₹1,600 crore returns 25.6% there. The same group earning ₹300 crore on ₹4,000 crore elsewhere returns 7.5%, and the consolidated average of the two hides the fact that one business is worth owning and the other is consuming the cash the first one makes.

Unallocated corporate assets sit outside the segments and can be large. Where they are, the segment returns are overstated relative to the group, and the reconciliation at the foot of the note tells you by how much.

This table is where a conglomerate discount stops being a sentiment and starts being arithmetic.