The Structure Of A Ratio

What is a ratio?  What are the different ways of expressing the relationship of two amounts?  What information does a ratio provide?

G. Times-Interest-Earned Ratio: This ratio measures how capable Company G is to pay debt. An increment (31.12-35.17) puts Company G above industry quartile of 29.7/17.2/8.1. Times-Interest-Earned Ratio represents strength for Company G.

1996 Current Assets: Cash & Equivalents Marketable Securities AFS Accounts Receivable Inventory Other Current Assets Total Current Assets Property & Equipment, net Goodwill, net Other Total Assets Current Liabilities: Short-Term Borrowings Accounts Payable Accrued Expenses Income Taxes Payable Current Maturities of LT Debt Total Current

* Existing assets with current book value of $6 mm. These assets will generate cash flows of either $8 mm or $8.8 mm next year, depending on whether the economy is in a recession or a boom.

From table 3, we can see that accounts receivables, inventory and other current assets accounts, their percentage of total assets didn’t have big difference over the three years trend. The increase of cash and cash equivalent from 7.1% of total assets in 2010 to 13% in 2011 is the main reason that total current asset in terms of the percentage of total assets had significant increase (from 33% to 40%).

Assets | Current Assets | | Cash And Cash Equivalents | 222,640   | 229,299   | 246,400   | | Short Term Investments | -   | -   | -   | | Net Receivables | 82,235   | 63,136   | 47,178   | | Inventory | 17,016   | 14,345   | 12,295   | | Other Current Assets | 31,228   | 23,905   | 16,211   | | Total Current Assets | 353,119   | 330,685   | 322,084   | Long Term Investments | -   | -   | -   | Property Plant and Equipment | 492,022   | 444,094   | 403,784   | Goodwill |

The four different types of assets are Current Assets, Long-Term Assets, PPE (Property, Plant & Equipment), and Intangible Assets. Team B’s task was to define current assets. A current asset is an asset which can either be converted to cash or used to pay current liabilities within one year. Typical current assets include

Assets and liabilities are bifurcated in current and non-current. Current asset is defined as any asset which can be converted into cash readily and will be used within one accounting period normally 1 year e.g. Receivables, Inventory, Prepaid Expenses.

Asset Account – Can be organized into current and non-current category. Types of current accounts would be goods owned by a company with the result of selling items or a written note(s) receivable, in which a promise is made to repay services rendered. A non-current item is any item used for the efficient running of a company such as equipment like computers. This referred to as a fixed asset. (MyAccountingCourse.com, n.d.)

Patrick Downes and Daejeong Choi discuss pay dispersion and how it affects individual employees. They have shown that pay dispersion can be seen negatively for some and for others it can be seen as a positive. For publicly traded

The current assets are those which are readily convertible into cash and cash equivalents due to their highly liquid nature and also form part of working capital of the company’s operations. However, the long term assets in contrast are not liquid because since they have a useful life of more than a year and hence their full value cannot be easily realized within

Current assets: 2011 Cash and cash equivalents Short-term investments Accounts receivable Prepaid expenses and deposits Loan receivable (note 2) Derivative financial instrument - short term Restricted cash and cash equivalents (note 3) Other assets Capital assets (note 4) $ 13,397 4,130 12,325 17,091 4,290 1,352 52,585 11,808 – 264,350 $ 2010 10,420 10,772 1,739 75,992 – 1,544 100,467 113,040

The ratios are like a pattern and can be found in simple things such as

Theoretically, current ratio of 1 means that the company have cash and cash equivalents that are equal to current debt. Current ratio above 1 defines that company has sufficient cash and cash equivalents to pay back the current liabilities. While current ratio below 1 define that company lack of cash and cash equivalents to pay back the current liabilities.

Firms and Companies include ‘Ratios’ in their external report to which it can be referred as ‘highlights’. Only with the help of ratios the financial statements are meaningful. It is therefore, not surprising that ratio analysis feature are prominently in the literature on financial management. According to Mcleary (1992) ratio means “an expression of a relationship between any two figures or groups of figures in the financial statements of an undertaking”.