Undefined Ratios Essay

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Case Study HBS: The case of the Unidentified Ratios Based on the information provided by the common-sized financial statements, we came up to the conclusion that: Firm A – Investment Bank Main reasons: • High level of leverage, demonstrated in the highest ratios of all companies: assets/equity and debt/equity. • Highest number of days of receivable – banks lend money to their costumers (ex. long term loans) and expect to receive this money in a not very short period of time, reflected in the days of receivables (1941 days = 5.3 years approximately). • Low level of equity, characteristics of investment banks, which in this case only represents 8.5% of its structure, and is also the lowest from all the firms. Firm B – Warehouse shopping club Main reasons: • This company has a high level of inventory (17.3%) and a high level of inventory turnover (11.0). • Compared to the supermarket chain, this company has a higher percentage of net, plant and equipment (65.4% vs. 46.5%) and higher margins, since generally they have more value aggregated products. The warehouse-shopping club also has a similar number for days of receivables, characteristics of the payments in cash and payment cards. Firm C – Express delivery firm Main reasons: • Among all firms, we realize that firm C has the highest percentage for long-term debt (32.9%), characteristic of this type of companies that need long term debt to finance many of their assets. • In terms of days of receivable, this firm has an average number (41.2) as generally they give credit to some of its costumers. • If we see its intangibles (21%) we also see this takes into account a representative number of non-current assets, that might come from its brand name, know-how, etc. Firm D – Hotel Chain Main reasons: • This company has a high level of non-current assets

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