Evaluating A Company's Capital Structure

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For any company, the ability to meet its short-term and long-term financial goals is an essential factor in maintaining its operations and ensuring future growth. A company evaluation at regular time intervals helps to check its financial health, its capital structure and its potential to attract investors. You can also evaluate company by assessing its capital structure and its potential to attract stock investors. A strong balance sheet is one of the most important things that stock investors consider before investing in the company’s stock. A balance sheet’s strength can be measured in three categories: • Working capital adequacy • Capital structure • Asset performance This article will show you how to evaluate company by evaluating its balance sheet based on its capital structure. A company’s capitalization is composed of its long-term capital, which is a combination of equity and debt. A healthy proportion of equity capital, instead of debt capital, indicates good financial health. Debt-equity relationship • The equity part of the debt-equity relationship consists of the company’s stock and retained earnings. This long-term capital and debt supports the company’s growth and its assets. • The debt part is often misunderstood by people as they take it that it means liabilities. However, investors should understand that operational and debt liabilities are two different things when they evaluate company. • They should understand that debt comprises short-term borrowings, long-term debt, two-thirds of principal amounts of the operating lease, current portion of the long-term debt, and redeemable preferred stock. • There is no optimal debt-equity relationship. It varies depending on the companies’ line of business, the ... ... middle of paper ... ...arer picture when it is observed in the long term and compared with the competitors’ values. Impact of Intangible Assets • Intangible assets can be categorized into intellectual property, deferred charges, and purchased goodwill. • Investors should look at the amounts of purchased goodwill in the company’s balance sheet when evaluating company. • Analysts often deduct the purchased goodwill amount from the value of shareholders equity to get the company’s tangible net worth. • If the deduction of purchased goodwill impacts the company’s equity position in a negative way then it is a matter of concern for the investors. • The size of purchased goodwill should be compared with the shareholders equity and the success rate of the company in terms if acquisitions. • Evaluating a company on this basis is a judgment call and needs to be considered carefully.

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