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Primary factors influencing capital structure decision
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Capital structure analysis
Liquidity
Liquidity is the important meaning of financial risk and solvency. It refers to the extent to which assets can be converted into cash without affecting the asset 's price during normal business operations. Because of the cash flow problem and especially the cash flow problem, many enterprises are bankrupt. As a result, the liquid ratio or the current ratio are used to compare the capacity of the short term debt between the two different companies.
At first, the current ratio is a sign of the company 's market liquidity and ability to meet the requirements of the creditors., which is just the flow of assets divided by current liabilities. As shown in Appendices 1, the current ratio of Aristocrat is 2.15, it is usually sufficient to meet short-term business needs. Ainsworth’s current ratio is 4.361, it means that the company should hold assets rather than using them to grow the business.
Moreover, the Quick or Acid-test ratio is a company 's short-term liquidity indicator, and it is the fundamental
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Hence the debt is accounted for 55.29% of total assets in Aristocrat, while Ainsworth only 15.57% of the total assets are debt. In other words, this shows that there is $0.5529 of debt finance in every $1 of total assets in Aristocrat, but there is only $0.1557 of debt finance for Ainsworth. However, the higher the ratio of liabilities to total assets, so that the higher the financial risk of the company. The company 's capital structure has a direct impact on its financial risk, which is not covered by the risk of the company 's financial obligations required. Here, the major assets of Aristocrat are from long-term debt financing, while most of assets are made up of equity in Ainsworth. Therefore, the Ainsworth may be less risk than the Aristocrat, because Aristocrat bears a higher proportion of financial liabilities and
Suppliers are mostly concerned with a company 's ability to pay on their liabilities. Therefore, the current ratio and the quick ratio are both looked at by suppliers. The current ratio takes a company’s current assets and divides that by the company’s current liabilities. This number is
Net working capital represents organization’s operating liquidity. In order to compute the net working capital, total current assets are divided from total current liabilities. When there is sufficient excess of current assets over current liabilities, an organization might be considered sufficiently liquid. Another ratio that helps in assessing the operating liquidity of as company is a current ratio. The ratio is calculated by dividing the total current assets over total current liabilities. When the current ratio is high, the organization has enough of current assets to pay for the liabilities. Yet, another mean of calculating the organization’s debt-paying ability is the debt ratio. To calculate the ratio, total liabilities are divided by total assets. The computation gives information on what proportion of organization’s assets is financed by a debt, and what is the entity’s ability to pay for current and long term liabilities. Lower debt ratio is better, because the low liabilities require low debt payments. To be able to lend money, an organization’s current ratio has to fall above a certain level, also the debt ratio cannot rise above a certain threshold. Otherwise, the entity will not be able to lend money or will have to pay high penalties. The following steps can be undertaken by a company to keep the debt ratio within normal
From the table 3 it is indicated that the current ratio of British Petroleum is higher than one both in the recent financial statements i.e. of 2014 and in the financial statement of previous year i.e. of 2013. In 2013 the current ratio of British Petroleum is 1.33 which indicates that the company has sufficient current assets to satisfy it short term liabilities. However, the current ratio in 2014 is 1.37 (BP Global, 2014) indicating increase and depicting that is in position to satisfy its short term debts. Thus this indicates the strength of company in satisfying its debt.
There is no universal theory of the debt-equity choice, and no reason to expect one. In this essay I will critically assess the Pecking Order Theory of capital structure with reference and comparison of publicly listed companies. The pecking order theory says that the firm will borrow, rather than issuing equity, when internal cash flow is not sufficient to fund capital expenditures. This theory explains why firms prefer internal rather than external financing which is due to adverse selection, asymmetry of information, and agency costs (Frank & Goyal, 2003). The trade-off theory comes from the pecking order theory it is an unintentional outcome of companies following the pecking-order theory. This explains that firms strive to achieve an optimal capital structure by using a mixture debt and equity known to act as an advantage leverage. Modigliani and Miller (1958) showed that the decisions firms make when choosing between debt and equity financing has no material effects on the value of the firm or on the cost or availability of capital. They assumed perfect and frictionless capital markets, in which financial innovation would quickly extinguish any deviation from their predicted equilibrium.
The current ratio measures the ability of a business to pay back their liabilities. Kroger’s current ratio for both years was under one, which shows that Kroger has more current liabilities than current assets. This could predict that Kroger is not in good financial health at this time. However, some of their competitors have current ratios under one too. The grocery store industry trends to have lower liquidity ratios, because they keep lower levels of current assets. Their ongoing sales help pay upcoming liabilities. Still, business owners and investors would be looking for a current ratio over one at least.
Current Ratio – For the last three years was growing from 3.56 in 2001 to 3.81 in 2002 to 4.22 in 2003. The reason of grow is increased in Assets. Even though Liability was growing, Asset grow was more significant.
The quick ratio is an alternate calculation of liquidity that does not take account of inventory in the current assets. The quick ratio is the ratio of current assets minus inventory then compared to current liabilities. The current assets used in the quick ratio are cash, accounts receivable, and notes receivable. It is a sign of a business’s short-range convertible assets. The greater the quick ratio the healthier the business's liquidity situation is.
Does the capital structure of a firm really matter? If so, how and why does it matter? Practitioners and scholars of corporate finance have debated these questions for several years and have found it difficult to come up with definitive answers. The classical work of Modigliani and Miller (1958) provided the impetus for what is now, orthodox corporate finance theory on the optimal capital structure of firms. They postulated that, in a perfect or frictionless capital market, the choice between debt and equity financing has no material effect on the value of the firm. Stern and Chew (2003) noted that following the Modigliani-Miller propositions, academic researchers in the 1960s and 1970s turned their attention to market imperfections that might make firm value depend on capital structure. They further noted that the main suspects were a tax code that encourages debt by making interest payments but not dividends tax-deductible and expected costs of financial distress that rise with increasing amount of debt. Towards the end of the 1970s, they noted, there was also discussion of signalling effects, such as the tendency for stock prices to fall significantly on the announcement of new equity issues and to rise on the news of stock buyouts. These effects seemed to confirm the existence of large information cost that could influence financing choices in the predictable ways.Myers (1984), however, noted that there is a conflict which has existed among the different theories and referred to is as the “capital structure puzzle.” Barclay and Smith (2005) noted that it has been the difficulty of coming up with conclusive tests of the competing theories. Firstly, they noted that model on capital structure typically are less precise than...
Quick Ratio: is an indicator of a company’s short-term liquidity. The quick ratio measures a company’s ability to meet its short-term obligations with its most liquid assets. Quick ratio formula = current assets – Inventories / current liabilities. For 20017, Costco Quick ratio was (17,317- 9,834) / 17,495 = 43%. This low quick ratio is an indicator that Costco is over leverage.
The increasing trend in the quick ratio from 4.7 to 7.7 during 2013 – 2014 shows that its quick assets are more as compared to its current liabilities. This shows that the firm is easily paying off its current liabilities. Similarly, the increasing trend in the current ratio reflects that the firm is easily paying off its current debts by using profits generated from its current operations. Likewise, the increasing trend in the asset turnover ratio means that the firm is using its assets productively.
In regards to the corporation’s balance sheet, it is necessary to place an importance on liquidity ratios to demonstrate the company’s ability to pay its short term obligations such as accounts payable and notes that have a duration of less than one year. These commonly used liquidity ratios include the current ratio, quick ratio, and cash ratio. All three ratios are used to measure the liquidity of a company or business. The current ratio is used to indicate a business’s ability to meet maturing obligations. The quick ratio is used to indicate the company’s ability to pay off debt. Finally the cash ratio is used to measure the amount of capital as well short term counterparts a business has over its current liabilities.
Ratio analysis is an efficient tool which has been used for years by bankers, financial institutes and investors to measure the financial performance of firms and organizations. 4.1.1. Current Ratio Figure 1: Current Ratio Source: IBIS World 2017, Bega Cheese Ltd Financial Report. Liquidity or current ratio measures the company capability of a company to pay its short-term obligations. As stated in table 1, the current ratio for Bega cheese Ltd was stable between the year Y2013 and Y2016
Ratios traditionally measure the most important factors such as liquidity, solvency and profitability, as well as other measures of solvency. Different studies have found various ratios to be the most efficient indicators of solvency. Studies of ratio analysis began in the 1930’s, with several studies of the concluding that firms with the potential to file bankruptcy all exhibited different ratios than those companies that were financially sound.
The capital structure of a firm is the way in which it decides to finance its operations from various funds, comprising debt, such as bonds and outstanding loans, and equity, including stock and retained earnings. In the long term, firms seek to find the optimal debt-equity ratio. This essay will explore the advantages and disadvantages of different capital structure mixes, and consider whether this has any relevance to firm value in theory and in reality.
... show that the company is growing and expanding, property and inventory, as a percentage of assets, should be increasing instead of decreasing. More property and inventory, if it is not owned by creditors, would also decrease their debt to total assets ratio.