Which Thai Industries Inflate Return on Equity With Debt 2026
In short
Financial and insurance carries 3.72 baht of assets for every baht of equity, the heaviest debt load of any major Thai industry as of 7 July 2026. Its return on assets is a modest 1.80 percent. That debt turns the return into a 6.71 percent return on equity. Human health needs far less debt, just 1.62 times equity. Its return on assets already reaches 6.71 percent. Its return on equity climbs to a stronger 10.89 percent. The national average equity multiplier is 2.40 times. Return on equity alone cannot tell you which industries earned their number and which borrowed it.
Which industries lean hardest on debt to boost return on equity?
Financial and insurance carries 3.72 baht of assets for every baht of equity, the heaviest debt load of any major industry in Thailand as of 7 July 2026 (DBD, 2026). Its return on assets is a modest 1.80 percent. Multiply that thin operating return by its equity multiplier and the sector's return on equity comes out to 6.71 percent. That is barely above the national average of 6.12 percent. Accommodation and food service carries nearly as much debt relative to equity, at 3.54 times. Its return on assets is a similarly modest 2.23 percent. That debt load turns it into a 7.91 percent return on equity. Human health sits near the bottom of the debt table at 1.62 times equity, one of the lightest loads among sectors with a meaningful profit. Its return on assets alone, 6.71 percent, already matches finance's entire return on equity. Add its own light debt load and human health's return on equity reaches 10.89 percent, well clear of finance's, without anywhere near the same amount of borrowed money behind it.
Assets carried per baht of equity, by industry
- Financial and insurance4
- Accommodation and food service4
- Other services3
- Real estate3
- Administrative and support3
- Transportation and storage2
- Information and communication2
- Manufacturing2
- Water and waste2
- Professional, scientific and technical2
- Electricity and gas2
- Agriculture2
- Construction2
- Human health2
- Wholesale and retail trade2
- Mining and quarrying2
Figures in times equity.
Finance and hospitality run the heaviest debt loads. Mining, wholesale trade and human health carry the lightest.
Return on assets, debt and return on equity by industry
| Industry section | Return on assets | Equity multiplier | Return on equity | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial and insurance | 1.80% | 3.72x | 6.71% | 35,567 |
| Accommodation and food service | 2.23% | 3.54x | 7.91% | 83,598 |
| Other services | 0.25% | 2.68x | 0.67% | 20,455 |
| Real estate | 1.05% | 2.56x | 2.69% | 149,608 |
| Administrative and support | 1.92% | 2.52x | 4.85% | 100,691 |
| Transportation and storage | 4.55% | 2.42x | 11.02% | 85,273 |
| Information and communication | 2.36% | 2.36x | 5.57% | 52,537 |
| Manufacturing | 4.51% | 2.18x | 9.82% | 230,396 |
| Water and waste | 4.15% | 2.09x | 8.66% | 4,818 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 5.30% | 2.03x | 10.75% | 138,962 |
| Electricity and gas | 3.97% | 1.94x | 7.72% | 7,833 |
| Agriculture | 1.45% | 1.88x | 2.73% | 19,259 |
| Construction | 1.43% | 1.78x | 2.55% | 283,534 |
| Human health | 6.71% | 1.62x | 10.89% | 17,294 |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 2.06% | 1.56x | 3.23% | 715,976 |
| Mining and quarrying | 5.23% | 1.52x | 7.92% | 8,231 |
Return on assets, the equity multiplier and return on equity by industry section, as of 7 Jul 2026.
Why the source of return on equity matters
Return on equity hides two very different stories behind one headline number. A sector can lift its return by squeezing more profit out of the assets it already has, which is mostly how human health, professional services and manufacturing get their numbers. Or a sector can lift its return by piling more debt onto a thin equity base, which is mostly how finance and, to a lesser extent, accommodation and food service get theirs. Bank of Thailand rules built on the Basel III framework require commercial banks to hold a minimum total capital ratio of 8.5 percent of risk weighted assets, well short of the equity cushion most operating companies carry, so a bank's balance sheet is built to run on borrowed deposits in a way a factory or a hospital never is (Bank of Thailand, 2024). One sector deserves a caution rather than a place in the ranking. Education's return on assets is just 0.71 percent. Its equity multiplier runs above 17 times, the highest of any section by far. Together they produce a 12.10 percent return on equity. That multiplier sits so far outside the rest of the table that it likely reflects a thin equity base among a handful of large reporting schools rather than a genuine sector wide pattern, so it is left out of the chart and table above. For anyone reading a company's return on equity as a scorecard of management skill, the equity multiplier is the number that shows whether the score was earned or borrowed.
Definitions
- Return on equity
- Net profit as a share of shareholder equity. A return of 6.71 percent means 6.71 satang of profit a year for every baht of owner capital in the business.
- Return on assets
- Net profit as a share of total assets, a measure of how efficiently a company or sector turns everything it owns into profit, independent of how those assets were financed.
- Equity multiplier
- Total assets divided by shareholder equity, showing how many baht of assets a sector carries for each baht of equity its owners contributed. A multiplier of 1 would mean a company holds no debt at all. Return on equity equals return on assets multiplied by the equity multiplier.
- Shareholder equity
- The owners' stake in a company, equal to total assets minus total liabilities, as reported on the filed balance sheet.
- Aggregate ratio
- A sector total, such as total net profit divided by total assets, rather than the average of each company's own individual ratio.
Assumptions
- Only companies that filed a financial statement contribute to a sector's return on assets, return on equity and equity multiplier.
- The equity multiplier is derived algebraically from return on equity divided by return on assets rather than from a separately queried assets and equity figure, so it inherits any rounding in the two source ratios.
- Sections with fewer than 1,000 reporting companies, sections with negative aggregate net profit, and education, whose near-zero return on assets makes its multiplier unstable, are excluded from the ranked chart and table.
- Bank balance sheets differ structurally from those of non-financial companies because deposits are recorded as liabilities, so finance's equity multiplier is not directly comparable to a manufacturer's on a like-for-like basis.
Methodology
Return on assets, return on equity and the equity multiplier are aggregate ratios computed from total net profit, total assets and total shareholder equity across all companies in a TSIC industry section that filed a financial statement, drawn from the Department of Business Development registry as of 7 July 2026. The equity multiplier is calculated as return on equity divided by return on assets, an identity that holds because both ratios share the same net profit figure in the numerator. Sections with fewer than 1,000 reporting companies and any section with negative aggregate net profit are excluded from the ranked chart and table. Education is also excluded from the ranking because its aggregate return on assets sits close to zero, which inflates its multiplier past 17 times and makes the ratio unstable, though its raw figures are discussed in the closing section.
How we verified this
- Financial and insurance's equity multiplier recomputes as its 6.70886 percent return on equity divided by its 1.80169 percent return on assets, which equals 3.72.
- Human health's equity multiplier recomputes as its 10.89244 percent return on equity divided by its 6.71422 percent return on assets, which equals 1.62.
- The national equity multiplier recomputes as the 6.12 percent national return on equity divided by the 2.55 percent national return on assets, which equals 2.40.
- Financial and insurance was confirmed as the maximum equity multiplier among the sixteen ranked sections, ahead of accommodation and food service at 3.54, with mining and quarrying the minimum at 1.52.
- Education's outlier multiplier recomputes as its 12.10013 percent return on equity divided by its 0.71059 percent return on assets, which equals 17.03, confirming it sits far outside the ranked range of 1.52 to 3.72.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- Bank of Thailand. (2024). Financial stability report 2024. Bank of Thailand. https://www.bot.or.th/content/dam/bot/documents/en/research-and-publications/reports/financial-stability-report/FSR2024e.pdf
Frequently asked questions
Which Thai industry relies most on debt to boost its return on equity?
Financial and insurance, which carries 3.72 baht of assets for every baht of equity, the highest equity multiplier of any major sector as of 7 July 2026.
Does a high return on equity always mean a more profitable company?
No. Return on equity combines return on assets with the equity multiplier, so a thin operating return can still produce a respectable return on equity if a sector carries enough debt.
Which industry gets a strong return on equity without much debt?
Human health, which carries an equity multiplier of just 1.62, earns its return mostly from operating profit rather than borrowed money. Its return on assets reached 6.71 percent. That performance lifted its return on equity to 10.89 percent.
Why is education left out of the ranked table?
Its return on assets is close to zero at 0.71 percent. That pushes its equity multiplier above 17 times, making the ratio too unstable to rank alongside the other sectors.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Which Thai Industries Inflate Return on Equity With Debt 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/where-leverage-inflates-roe-in-thai-industries-2026
Data & corrections
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Written by
Chatpong L.Founder, Max Data, Max Solutions Co., Ltd.
Chatpong L. leads Max Data, a company-intelligence platform built on Thailand's official business registry. He writes about the structure of the Thai economy using primary registry data. His work covers company formation, industry concentration, and regional business activity.
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This page reports company-level and aggregate statistics only. It names no individuals and makes no claims about any person. Figures are provided for information and may be revised as source data updates.