Eigenkapitalquote

Eigenkapitalquote is equity expressed as a share of the balance sheet total. Equity is what remains when all liabilities are deducted from the assets, so the ratio describes how much of what the pharmacy works with belongs to it rather than to a bank or a supplier. A lender reads it as a measure of how much loss the business could absorb before its creditors are affected.

In a pharmacy the figure depends heavily on how the business was acquired, because a pharmacy taken over from a predecessor was paid for, usually with borrowed money. The loan is on the balance sheet from the first day while much of what was bought does not appear as an asset at all. The ratio is therefore thin for years after a takeover and rises slowly as debt is repaid and profit is retained.

A pharmacy that was inherited or built up over decades is in a different position altogether, and comparing the two on this number alone says more about their history than about how either one is run.

There is no single correct level, because the ratio depends on several things at once:

• The legal form of the pharmacy affects the figure.
• Whether the premises are owned or rented changes the balance sheet total.
• How the equipment is financed changes the ratio as well.
• How much the owner draws privately affects the equity that is retained.

It is also a snapshot on the balance sheet date rather than a description of the whole year.

A Betriebsvergleich gives some sense of how a pharmacy compares with its peers, and Treuhand Hannover benchmarks roughly 3.500 pharmacies in its Betriebsvergleich in 2026. The spread within any peer group is wide enough that a single target number would mislead more than it helps.

What a lender actually does with the ratio is read it next to the ability to service debt. A low ratio with a stable Betriebsergebnis and a demonstrable Kapitaldienstfähigkeit is a different case from a low ratio with a result that is falling, and the Liquiditätsplanung usually shows which of the two the pharmacy is.

Raising the ratio is slow work either way, because it comes from retained profit, from lower private drawings or from new money put in, but none of those changes much in a quarter.

How equity is presented in the balance sheet, and which accounting treatment applies, depends on the legal form and on the individual situation of the pharmacy, so it belongs with the Steuerberater.