Laura Ashley Essay

550 Words3 Pages
Strategic Management Laura Ashley case study 1) Looking at the last years’ financial data, we observe a deteriorating trend in Laura Ashley’s overall performance, as evident especially from the consistent retained losses in 1998 and 1999 (respectively 49,3 and 33 millions), despite the 43.5 million additional capital raised in 1999. Specifically, particular concern arises over the negative operating cash flow, which registered an 11.4 million outflow in 1999, indicating the company’s inability to generate cash through its core activities. Evidence of this is also provided by the negative operating margin, -5.8%, and net profit margin, -11.5%. Moreover, after performing external analysis, it appears that LA’s ROE is the only one negative among comparable companies, with a value of (108.6): this suggests that it is not the industry suffering from a general crisis, but rather our specific company facing internal difficulties connected with its operations. Furthermore, LA’s inventory turnover (5.1) is the lowest one within the industry, indicating inability to successfully manage inventory. From a financial perspective, the large outstanding debt imposes budget constraints on the firm, and interest payments, amounting to 39 millions in 1999, can be hardly met because of the insufficiency of cash generated from the core activities. Another issue is also the problem of raising additional funds, as banks would impose prohibitive interest rates to such a highly levered company. In conclusion, after analyzing Laura Ashley’s performance, we believe that the situation the company is experiencing is very problematic and it raises some doubts about its ability to continue as a going concern, unless its inherent weaknesses are properly addressed. 2) As we are able to see from the statements provided, GB markets definitely influences LA's sales, while data from US and

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