Introduction to Advanced Financial Analysis
- Who are the users of financial data?
- What types of financial information are available to each user group?
- The published Annual Financial Report (AFR) – what is its purpose?
- The structure and contents of an AFR
- The non-financial elements of the AFR
- Understanding the three main financial statements
- Income Statement
- Balance Sheet
- Cash flow Statement
- Comparison of different formats for the financial statements
- Identifying the important numbers from the financial statements
Understanding and Analyzing the AFR
- Why do we need to analyses the AFR?
- Using common-size analysis to improve comparability
- Calculating trends and growth patterns
- Using Ratio Analysis to assess five key aspects of company performance
- Profitability
- Liquidity
- Efficiency and Working Capital Management
- Financing Structure and Risk
- Investment Performance and Potential
Analytical Tools and How to Analyze the Cash Flow Statement
- Introduction to Excel tools for analyzing financial statements
- Setting up spreadsheets for common-sizing and ratio analysis
- Using statistical tools mean, standard deviation, regression analysis
- Using graphical representation
- Why do we need the Cash flow Statement?
- Key ratios we can calculate from the Cash flow Statement
- How to use current cash flow information to forecast future revenues and profits
Financing the Business and Valuing the Business
- Analyzing the Balance Sheet to identify debt and equity
- Short-term and long-term finance
- Measuring the company’s capital structure and estimating the costs of capital
- Cost of Equity (Ke), using DVM and CAPM
- Cost of Debt (Kd)
- Weighted Average Cost of Capital (Ko)
- Case study on Cost of Capital calculation
- Why do we need to value a business?
- Business valuation models
- Net Asset value – balance sheet, replacement cost or realisable value
- Price/Earnings ratio value
- Dividend growth value
- Present value of future free cash flows
Identifying Creative Accounting and Forecasting Future Failure
- What is creative accounting?
- Who benefits from creative accounting?
- How does creative accounting work?
- The symptoms of financial distress
- Financial and non-financial factors
- Using ratio analysis to identify financial distress or predict future failure
Forecasting future failure using ratio combinations