BUS-4072_FouchTashia_Week5Assignment

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Apr 30, 2024

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Week 5 Assignment: Financial Fraud Tashia Fouch Capella University BUS-4072: Analysis for Financial Management Professor Robert Watson February 2024
Financial Fraud 1. What were signs in the financial statements that indicated questionable expense recognition? According to Wed, Bergevin and Magrath, there are six early warning signs that point to questionable expense recognition: cash flows not correlated to earnings, receivables not correlated with revenues, allowances for uncollectible accounts that are not correlated with receivables, reserves not correlated with items on the balance sheet, acquisitions with no discernable purpose, and earnings that consistently meet a nalysts’ expectations with precision (2004). In HealthSouth’s financial statements, the bad debt expenses were calculated as a percentage of sales, which is very questionable expense recognition. 2. Why do you think that the signs were not noticed earlier? A close look at HealthSouth’s historical 10-K statements shows that they were able to meet or exceed analyst expectations for 48 consecutive quarters. Since HealthSouth was meeting their earnings expectations for quite awhile, I think that caused the signs to be overlooked or missed. HealthSouth’s auditors also assisted in downplaying and covering up these red flags. 3. Is there anything that you, as a reader of financial statements, might do to help ensure that your analysis does not miss such things? As a reader of financial statements, I would probably focus more attention on the management of expenses (i.e. the balance sheet, reporting of bad debt expenses, and the cash flows) to ensure that my analysis is as accurate as possible. If you keep an eye on expenses and expense management, you reduce the likelihood of missing warning signs. Why? Because expense management is the area where those seeking to engage in financial fraud usually try to manipulate numbers. EBITDA 1. As a potential investor in a company, how would you use EBITDA in your analysis? EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) is great for comparing the performance of different companies of various sizes. It doesn’t take costs like taxes, interest, amortization and depreciation into consideration, so I would use it to get a good a clear picture of each company’s ability to generate revenue compared to their net income. EBITDA can give an investor a quick look into a company’s operational efficiency, and therefore, it’s viability as an investment opportunity. 2. What, if anything, would you consider using as your secondary or support analysis? As a secondary or support analysis, I’d definitely look at a company’s net income, because net income is also very revelatory of how a company is performing financially. Net income quickly reveals a company’s profitability, so I think it’s a good source t o use in concert with EBITDA.
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