J.C. Penney is an American retail company and it has been in this industry for over 100 years. Currently, the company is in a decline stage and the management is looking for a solution for the problems that have been developed over the years. The company is losing cash, having negative net income, and excess inventory which brings the assumption that the company will run out of cash by the end of 2013. The management has not been controlling inventory and that is one of the reasons why the company is in this stage. Chief Executive Officers came up with different discount strategies in order to sell off the inventory, but it did not seem that any of them worked. Stock price is at $20 which is significantly lower than it was three years ago. …show more content…
During the last eight quarter, debt to assets ratio increased from 62% to 68% and the reason for that is because the total assets have decreased from $12.3 billion to $9.7 billion. Total liabilities have decreased as well from $7.6 billion to $6.6 billion. Even though both assets and liabilities decreased, assets decreased by much high percentage than liabilities did. For the last six quarters, the times interest earned ratio was negative which means that the EBIT was negative. Along with that, the EBIT is decline more and more every quarter. During the third quarter in 2011, EBIT was -$171 million and during the fourth quarter in 2012, it was -$745 million. Overall, both liquid and leverage ratios indicate the financial health of the company is declining. Company is losing assets (mostly cash) and they are not as liquid as they used to be. The assumption is that the company will be out of cash by the end of 2013. Cash conversion cycle shows the amount of time that company needs to receive payment for its products. JC Penney’s cash conversion cycle has decreased from 19.3 to -8.23 in the span of 3 years. The reason why it decreased was because payable deferral increased from 89.47 to 104.03. The company does not have any accounts receivables and that is why the cash conversion cycle is that low. It is very common that in the retail industry, companies do not have any accounts receivables because most of the sales are paid in cash. Every company wants to have a low cash cycle and JC Penney has achieved
By lowering selling prices across the board, Opossumtown, Inc. reduced its inventory turnover ratio, cutting the number of days to sell inventory from 174 days to 104 days; that is a 40% improvement. Opossumtown, Inc. also cut the number of days it takes to collect its credit accounts from 68 to 44 days, again that is 35% better than the previous year. The company is able to do this while cutting its debt ratio by 10% and increasing its current ratio by 25%, making it appear more favorable in terms of liquidity. As promising as this may look, this is not the whole picture. Opossumtown, Inc. shows an 11% decline in gross profit as well as operating income ratios, and a 3% decrease on the profit margin ratio. The decline of these ratios is a result of the company’s new strategy of decreasing the selling price and increasing its marketing and selling expenses. Opossumtown, Inc. made some noteworthy advancements with the implementation of its new plan for 2014. However, based on the assessment of the balance sheet, income statement and the ratios, the corporation did not achieve its goal to increase operating income by 6% and net income by 4%. Opossumtown, Inc. was only able to grow its operating income by a little more than half of one percent and net income by
After he was hired, then CEO Ron Johnson introduced a pricing philosophy called “the true price,” which involved the replacement of sales through coupons with everyday low prices. This eliminated the need to inflate prices that would later be discounted for sales. However, Johnson overestimated the rationality of consumers and forgot that coupons were communication tools that announced the beginning of the shopping season5. Their core customers were dependent on coupons and often times waited until sales before they would shop. The coupons gave customers psychological justification to shop for good deals. Besides alienating core customers by removing coupons and sales, he tried to turn JC Penny into a more modern shopping experience complete with boutique stores within the larger store, Wi-Fi, and juice bars with smoothies and coffee3. National brands replaced p...
In particular, a recent Y-O-Y inventory increase belies a misread of increased demand, which means short turn times and trendier inventory that grows stale on the store shelves. This, in turn, means customers are less incented to return to the retailer to check out “what 's new”. This decreases in repeat visits in turn leads to longer inventory turn times, which in turns leads to loss of profit. In short, a revamped Kohl 's that moves inventory more quickly immediately becomes more attractive to the
Sears has created a “Financial Crisis” when hedge fund manager Edward Lampert took over control of the company. The mentality of investors of a CFO is an important viewpoint during crisis because it can help streamline process and reduce cost. Retail experience should be dominant the retail in order to feel the pulse of the consumer desires and to determine proper margin levels while eliminating inefficiencies in the organization. According to Marina Strauss of the Globe and Mail, “a sweeping change will be required to improve the retailer’s outlook”. She quoted the (CEO of Sears-Canada) Mr. McDonald saying in a memo that “Our store are too difficult to shop in. We have inconsistent execution…We do not offer the right product in the right market” (STRAUSS M., 2011).
Looking at the individual ratios seen in exhibit 1 and comparing it to the industry average shown in exhibit 2 gives a sense of where this company stands. Current ratio and quick ratio are really low and have been decreasing. For 1995, the current ratio is 1.15:1, which is less than the industry average of 1.60:1, however to give a better sense of where this stands in the industry, as seen in exhibit 3, it is actually less than the average of the bottom 25% of the industry. The quick ratio is 0.61 is less than the industry is 0.90. Both these ratios serve to point out the lack of cash in this company. The cash flow has been decreasing because, it takes longer to get the money from customers, but the company still needs to pay for its purchases. Also, the company couldn’t go over the $400,000 loan limit, so they were forced to stretch their cash.
After analyzing the financial statement, I was able to determine several interesting aspects: a .52 debt ratio shows appeal to lenders; a current ratio of 6.31 is very impressive. Seeing that inventory is so unstable and subject to many natural extraordinary events, the more important acid test shows Mondavi has a comfortable, but less impressive ratio of 1.54.
It shows the investors that how liquid the inventory of the company is. This ratio measures and shows that how easily a company can turn its inventory or merchandise into cash. The increase in the ratio clearly indicates that the management of the company is managing its merchandise in an efficient and effective manner and it is also contribution to the profits of the company.
One of the first moves that the new CEO Ron Johnson did was to eliminate the use of promotions and coupon which created the biggest problems for the company. By looking at the chart in Appendix 1, we can see that JCpenney Operating Income Annual has started declining since the move was made in 2011 with the annual profit from $16 billion per year to the point where company start experienced loss in financial crisis. At the same time, JCPenny also laid off more than 1,600 workers during the 1 year span period. From 2009 to 2013, the company’s asset is also going down from $18 billion to $16.3 billion and it seemed that the company has lost its identity. JCP’s main customer was used to
JCPenney is one of the largest department stores and largest catalog merchant in the United States. This store is having problems with the changes in the consumer habits, and they realized that Millennials’ expectations are different. The Old Way to grab and attract other generations is not working with them, something appreciates through many ups and downs of the company. JCPenney is changing their strategy, and now they are applying the consumer psychology, which tells the customers what they want to hear. As a result, the sales are growing and, for this moment they are getting to stop the bleeding (Tannahill, 2016).
The company again received unqualified opinions for both the reliability if its financial statements and its internal control. The principal officers were the same as the preceding year. All three sales segments posted decreases in sales, with international sales falling by 10.7%. Management stated that the company is continually falling short of expectations, and due to this increasing uncertainty, they will no longer provide annual profitability projections, and will instead provide these estimates on a quarterly basis. The company continued to see sales moving online and plan to devote more attention to that market, closing up to 225 North American stores by the end of 2015. The company incurred a further $78.3 million in restructuring costs throughout the year. The company’s available fund in cash and credit was reduced in amount to only 1.55 billion, a signal that creditors may be increasingly wary of Staples’
Rondo's Inventory Ratio declined to 9.5 in 2005, down from a ratio of 10 in 2003 and 2004. Rondo's sales improved year-over-year and the decline in inventory turns may be the result of carrying more inventory in response to increased sales. However, Rondo is still carrying too much inventory or the company may have excess obsolete inventory. Rondo needs to utilize just-in-time methods to improve inventory turn over. (Nice catch.) Carrying fewer inventories is required to improve efficiency and reduce cost. Rondo's performance is poor in this area.
JCPenney is a chain of American mid-range department stores that is based out of Texas that started over 100 years ago. JCPenny has been successful for most of its time up until the last three to four years. The company is trying relentlessly to overcome the lingering effects of the makeover that former CEO, Ron Johnson, had implemented in order for the company to take a new direction in hopes of increasing sales. The new CEO, Myron Ullman, has taken a close look into the markets demographic segmentation along with the income segmentation in order to attempt to return the retailer back to its old self, which is to appeal to middle-market customers. A couple issues of major concern for the company are the dissolving of Johnson’s Boutiques, the price of their products, and overall revenue.
The current cash debt coverage ratio dropped from 3.38 to 2.69. This is because the increase in cash from operating activities (26%) is lower than the increase in the average total current liabilities (58%). Again, IQ seems to remain highly liquid nevertheless.
This graph show that’s recently their return on investment is so badly down they are not making any return on investment. This is hurting the investor and shareholder that operate and own Sears corp. The company has to work and see what they can do to change this and make sure they are making investment that will help them show profit and higher revenue, like having better holiday season sales.
... company’s financial statements it is obvious that Net income for consecutive three years is following an upward trend and therefore growth is accelerating on consistent basis. Cash flow from operating activities, which fell last year by 1,938 (000 $) have boosted this year to 165,613. But still the company’s current assets fall well short of its current liabilities. For this reason we have assigned ‘B-Grade’ to your company after analyzing its financial statements of the year 2002. References Microsoft Corporation analysis made from ‘Microsoft Annual Report 2002 & Form 10-K’ Exxon Mobil Company’s analysis retrieved from the ‘Summary Financial Reports 2002’ from www.exxonmobil.com on 14/05/2003 http://www.argosycasinos.com/corporate/investor_information2/02_annualreport/operations.html for Argosy Gaming Company’s financial information, retrieved on 14/05/2003