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Financial Analysis for Ralph Lauren Corporation Essay example

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Abstract

Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) is well known in the apparel clothing field. The corporation engages in the design, marketing and distribution of lifestyle product. This analysis paper will illustrate the current financial situation and forecast the future free cash flow based on the previous financial statement and financial data collected. These information and forecast are served for the potential investor to have a general understanding of RL Corporation and make the right choice on their money.

Financial Analysis for Ralph Lauren Corporation

Ralph Lauren, an American designer, established the brand Polo Ralph Lauren in 1967. At first, Ralph Lauren’s collection was …show more content…

As the creditors’ view, they prefer the high current ratio. The current ratio provides the best single indicator of the extent, which assets that are expected to be converted to cash fairly quickly cover the claims of short-term creditors. However, consider the current ratio from the perspective of a shareholder. A high current ratio could mean that the company has a lot of money tied up in nonproductive assets.

The return on equity, ROE, is as high as 20.69% (above 15%). It illustrate that the RL Corporation uses the investors’ money pretty effectively. As of return of assets, equals to 13.10%, which reveals how much profit a company earns for every dollar of its assets. Both ROE and ROA for RL Corporation seems really good and they provide a picture that managers are doing a good job of generating return from shareholders’ investments.

The current financial performance is pretty optimistic for RL Corporation. At the same time, we also need to forecast the future financial data after 2012. To forecast the future free cash flow, only the internal employees can get the real and accurate information and ratios. As an external observer, we usually analyze the linear relation between the cost of capital and growth rate, considered as the constant growth model. First of all, we need find the WACC, Weighted Average Cost of Capital. The weighted average of the after-tax

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