Building financial models : the complete guide to designing, building, and applying projection models. Chapter 14. Ratios

24 Pages·2009·0.584 MB·English

by  John S Tjia

Here is a sample chapter from Building Financial Models,
widely acclaimed by accounting and fi nance professionals
for its insight into determining a company’s current value and
projecting its future performance. Building on this tradition,
the updated and expanded Second Edition helps you
develop a fi nancial model, complete with entirely new
material on discounted cash fl ow (DCF) modeling. You will
fi nd this guide invaluable for both its practical, step-by-step
approach to creating a core model and its broad coverage of
model mechanics and foundational accounting and fi nance
concepts.
Copyright © 2009 by John S. Tjia. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States
Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by
any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-07-173669-5
MHID: 0-07-173669-7
The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-160889-3,
MHID: 0-07-160889-3.
All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after
every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorialfashion only, and to the
benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such
designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps.
McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales
promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. To contact a representative please e-mail us at
[email protected].
TERMS OF USE
This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“McGraw-Hill”) and its licensors
reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permitted
under the Copyright Act of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work, you may not
decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce, modify, create derivative works based upon,
transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it without
McGraw-Hill’s prior consent. You may use the work for your own noncommercial and personal use;
any other use of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be terminated if you
fail to comply with these terms.
THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS.” McGRAW-HILL AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO
GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACYOR COMPLETNESS
OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY
INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIAHYPERLINK OR

OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUTNOTLIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITYOR
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do not warrant or
guarantee that the functions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operation
will be uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or
anyone else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any
damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information
accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable
for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the
use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such
damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim
or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise.
C H A P T E R 14
Ratios
A
t this stage, we have a model with a complete set of the three fi -
nancial statements. In this chapter, we will go through the types of
ratios for showing how well a company is performing and a type
of presentation called “common-size” that will show the income
statement and balance sheet as nothing but ratios.
14.1 COMPARING NUMBERS AGAINST ONE ANOTHER
Once we have a complete model for a company, we can now use
the numbers being produced to gain an understanding of the com-
pany. The historic al numbers give us an insight into how well the
company has been performing. From these, we can make forecast
assumptions based on the historical trends and what we know of
developments in the company’s industry and see how well the
company will perform based on these assumptions.
Numbers are most useful when we can compare them
against other numbers to show ratios. For example, let’s say
there are two companies, each with a net income of $10 million.
With just this information, the two may seem to be equals. But
as the table shows, when we compare this against other num-
bers—in this case each company’s revenues—we see a different
picture:
313
314 Chapter 14
Company A Company B
Net income $10 million $10 million
Revenues $100 million $200 million
Net margin 10% 5%
Now the fact emerges that the second company is only half
as profi table on a net margin basis as the fi rst.
By the same token, we can have two companies, one with
profi ts twice as high as the other. Twice as profi table? Not nec-
essarily:
Company C Company D
Net income $10 million $20 million
Revenues $100 million $200 million
Net margin 10% 10%
With one company’s revenues twice as high as the other,
the two have the same net margin profi tability, even though
they are of different sizes.
Ratios perform an indexing function—they bring different
sets of numbers to a common yardstick; for example, revenues
and net income are shown as one profi tability index. Ratios al-
low us to look at performance of:
(cid:2) A company across time
(cid:2) Companies in an industry, even though they may vary
in size
(cid:2) Companies in different industries

(cid:2) Companies in different countries
(cid:2) Any combination of the above
Of course, one has to keep in mind factors such as economies
of scale and different accounting treatments when comparing
companies across disparate criteria. Nevertheless, ratios provide
a good starting point for analysis.
In common-size statements, which we cover a little later in
this chapter, we can also look at the performance of one com-
pany across time, even if that company has gone through con-
siderable growth.
Ratios 315
Different industries also have different ratio benchmarks, so
it is important to limit ratio analysis to companies within an in-
dustry, but not across industries. And as you work with ratios,
you should also keep in mind that companies often have some
accounting approaches to manage their earnings numbers, to
make their ratios look better. As an example, many department
stores choose a fi scal year-end of January or February, when
their inventory is at the lowest point after the end-of-the-year
holiday sales. Companies can pay off their short-term working
capital loans just before their reporting date, so that their debt
ratios may be more favorable. They then draw down on their
credit lines again after the reporting date passes.
14.2 NEGATIVE NUMBERS
From a modeling viewpoint, negative numbers present some prob-
lems. Here is a return on equity (net income/equity) calculation:
Company E Company F
Net income $10 million ($10 million)
Equity $100 million ($100 million)
Return on equity 10% 10%
It seems that both companies earn the same return on their
equity, but obviously one is healthy, while the other one is dire
straits. In such a case, you may want to use an IF statement that
will calculate the ratio only if the denominator is positive and if
not return a text message of “n/a” (for “not applicable”).
Here is another example, with a negative dividend payout
ratio (dividend/net income):
Company G Company H
Dividend $10,000 $10,000
Net income $50,000 ($50,000)
Payout ratio 20% (20%)
A negative payout ratio does not mean that Company H
has a lower payout ratio than Company G. If anything, Com-
pany H has an exorbitantly high payout ratio, given that it is
paying dividends when in fact it has a net loss in earnings.
316 Chapter 14
14.3 CATEGORIES OF RATIOS
When we look at companies and their ratios, there are six broad
categories of metrics. These six apply to all types of companies,
but within each category, there will be measures that are more im-
portant for some industries and less so for others:
(cid:2) Size
(cid:2) Liquidity
(cid:2) Effi ciency
(cid:2) Profi tability
(cid:2) Leverage
(cid:2) Coverage
14.3.1 Some Important Terms
EBIT, or earnings before interest and taxes, is an important num-
ber in the income statement, because it represents the company’s
ability to generate operating earnings before interest expense (a
cost related to fi nancing decisions, not operating decisions) and
taxes (a cost related to running a business in a regulated econo-
my). This is also called operating profi t or operating income.
EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation,
and amortization of intangibles. EBITDA is useful for compar-
ing companies within and across industries, because it does not
include the effects of many of the factors that differentiate com-
panies in differen t sectors, such as interest (from different cap-
ital structures), depreciation (from different fi xed asset bases),
amortization (from different holdings of intangibles), and taxes
(from different tax treatments). Because depreciation and amor-
tization of intangibles are noncash expenses, EBITDA shows the
amount of cash a company can generate from its operations.
This is the source of cash for any interest payments, so this
is a measure that a company’s creditors would examine very
closely.
Net debt is total debt minus cash and cash equivalents.
Cash equivalents are accounts such as short-term investments or
marketable securities, which can be easily turned into cash. Net
Ratios 317
debt represents the net debt load that a company has to bear af-
ter using its cash and cash equivalents. Companies with a large
cash position relative to their total debt will have a negative net
debt.
14.4 FOR SIZE
All things being equal, the larger the company as shown by the
measures that follow, the sounder it is.
1. Revenues
2. Total assets
3. Total shareholders’ equity
14.5 FOR LIQUIDITY
These measures give an indication of how much of a company’s
cash is invested in its current assets. However, they also show how
well current assets can cover current liabilities if the company had
to liquidate them into cash.
14.5.1 Working Capital
Working capital (sometimes also called net working capital) is cur-
rent assets minus current liabilities. Working capital is a measure
of the cushion that a company has for meeting obligations within

the ordinary operating cycle of the business.
14.5.2 Operating Working Capital
Operating working capital (OWC) is a nonstandard term that
means current assets without cash minus current liabilities without
short-term debt (which includes any current portion of long-term
debt). This measure looks at how much of its cash a company
uses in maintaining its day-to-day operations. The higher the
operating working capital, the less liquid a company is, because
its cash is tied up in accounts such as accounts receivables and
inventory.
318 Chapter 14
14.5.3 The Current Ratio, or Current Assets/Current Liabilities
The current ratio is current assets divided by current liabilities.
The ratio measures the multiple by which a company can use its
current assets (if it could convert them all to cash) to cover all its
current liabilities.
14.5.4 The Quick Ratio, or (Current Assets – Inventory)/
Current Liabilities
The quick ratio is similar to the current ratio but is a more severe
ratio (the ratio will be a lower number than the current ratio) in
that it takes inventory out of the numerator. Inventory is very illiq-
uid and usually cannot be turned into cash at a moment’s notice,
at least without resorting to deep discounts and “fi re sale” prices.
In regard to the last two ratios, both ratios are only indica-
tions since they do not include information about when the cur-
rent liabilities are due. A company that can stretch its accounts
payable over a longer period will have a better ability to pay its
other bills than a second company with the same ratios but with
a shorter payables payment period. These ratios are more popu-
lar in credit analysis than in mergers and acquisitions (M&A)
work.
14.6 FOR EFFICIENCY
The ratios that follow indicate how well or effi ciently a company
makes use of its a ssets to generate sales. The fi rst fi ve look at the
amount of balance sheet accounts that are tied up in the creation
of earnings. The last two look at how well the company’s assets
are utilized for sales.
1. Accounts receivable/sales * 365
2. Inventory/cost of goods sold * 365
3. Accounts payable/cost of goods sold * 365
4. [(Current assets – cash) – (current liabilities – short-term
debt)]/sales or Operating working capital/sales
5. Change in OWC and Change in OWC/sales
Ratios 319
6. Sales/net fi xed assets
7. Sales/total assets
14.6.1 Accounts Receivable/Sale * 365
Accounts receivable/sales * 365 shows how many days it takes
a company to collect on its receivables: the higher the number of
days, the worse its receivables management. If the company has
made a sale but has not collected the money from it, it is literally
extending an interest-free “loan” to that customer, tying up the
cash that could be put to productive use elsewhere.
Without the * 365, the ratio shows the fraction of the year’s
sales that is still tied up in receivables. By multiplying the num-
ber of days in a year into the fraction, we get not a fraction,
but the number of days that represents how long the average
receivable remains uncollected. Thus, the result is usually called
“receivable days.” (You can use 360 as the number of days, but
if you do, you should use the same number whenever you are
calculating portions of years elsewhere in the model.)
Receivable days that have been increasing refl ect declining
sales and/or a poorly managed collection system.
A similar ratio to this is sales/accounts receivable, revers-
ing the numerator and the denominator. This is a turnover ratio,
and it describes how many times receivables turn over in the
year (i.e., how many cycles of receivables are fully collected in
the year). The higher the ratio, the better, since it would refl ect
a faster receivables collection system.

14.6.2 Inventory/Cost of Goods Sold * 365
Inventory/cost of goods sold * 365 shows how many days it takes
a company to make use of a piece of inventory. The higher the
number of days, the worse it is. Like the receivable days ratio, an
“inventory days” ratio shows how long a company’s cash is tied
up in its inventory before that inventory is put into a product and
sold. A high inventory days number suggests slowing sales and/
or an ineffi cient production system.
Sales is sometimes used as the denominator and can show
the same trend. However, if there are changes in the gross margin