Advantages And Disadvantages Of Financial Leverage

Hedging is a significant measure of financial risk management. Since the 1970s, the increasing number of powerful companies started to control the risk of the exchange rate, the interest rate and commodity by using financial derivatives. ISDA (2013) based on the Global 500 Annual Report 2012 survey found that 88 percent of companies use foreign exchange derivatives. Modigliani & Miller (1958) believed that if the financial markets were under perfect conditions, for instance, there was no agency costs, asymmetric information, taxes and transaction costs, hedging would not increase the company 's value because investors can hedge by themselves. However, a large number of practical studies have shown that hedging is beneficial

Liquidity is important for any firm as it is an assessment of the ability to pay its' liabilities in the short term. There are two main liquidity ratios: the current and the quick ratio. The current ratios divides the current assets by the current liabilities to assess how many times the current assets can pay the current liabilities (Elliott and Elliott, 2011). Traditional ratios are usually in the region of 1.5, but this may vary depending on the industry and nature of the business (Elliott and Elliott, 2011). The current ratio is shown in table 1.

Liquidity ratios measures a company`s ability to provide enough cash to cover its short-term obligations. The most common liquidity ratios include; the current ratio and the quick ratio.

Liquidity ratios are the temporary capabilities of a business to compensate for its established requirements and unanticipated needs for cash. Suppliers and bankers are the short-term creditors who are mostly

This ratio is similar to current ratio, except that it excludes inventory from current assets. Inventory is subtracted because it is considered to be less liquid than other current assets, that is, it cannot be easily used to pay for the company’s current liabilities. A company having a quick ratio of at least 1.0, is considered to be financially stable. It has sufficient liquid assets and hence, it will be able to pay back its debts easily (Qasim Saleem et al., 2011).

These ratios are computed to judge the short term liquidity of the business. Two most important liquidity ratios are current ratio and quick ratio. These ratios determine the ability of firm to meets its current liabilities out of its current/quick assets.

The Quick Ratio also known as Acid Ratio is used by firms to determine liquidity position. It explains if the firm is able to pay all of their current debt liabilities. (Dyson, 2010) The graph above illustrates that over the period from 2007 to 2011 quick ratio was not more that 1, which means that their debts might not be covered all. The graph also indicates that a peak was in 2011.

Liquidity ratio. The firm’s liquidity shows a downward trend through time. The current ratio is decreasing because the growth in current liabilities outpaces the growth of current assets. The quick ratio is also declining but not as fast as the current ratio. From 1991 to 1992, it only decreased 0.35 units while the current ratio decreased 0.93 units. Looking at the common size balance sheet, we also see that the percentage of inventory is growing from 33% to 48% indicating Mark X could not convert its inventory to cash.

Liquidity ratios measure the ability of a firm to meet its short-term obligations. A company that is not able

Liquidity In analyzing liquidity of the company, the current ratio is not very telling of a falling company. The company increased its ratio throughout the period of the income statement thus building upon its company assets and allowing for a 6-1 ratio of assets over its liabilities. This implies the company is still able to operate sufficiently even though it did not make its optimum current ratio of about 8-1. However, when one takes the inventory out of the equation with the quick ratio, the numbers show the true strength of short term liquidity. The numbers are still good, and do not indicate failure – but are

These ratios help company in determining its capability to pay short-term debts. Liquidity ratios inform about, how quickly a firm can obtain cash by liquidating its current assets in order to pay its liabilities. General liquidity ratios are: current ratio and quick ratio. Current ration can be obtain by dividing company’s current assets by its’ current liabilities. Generally a current ratio of two is considered as good (Cleverley et al., 2011). Quick ratio also known as acid test determines company’s liabilities that need to be fulfilled on urgent basis. Quick ratio can be obtained by dividing quick assets by current liabilities. Quick ratio is considered as stricter because it excludes inventories from current assets. Generally a quick ratio of 1:1 is considered as good for the company. Higher quick

The quick ratio reflects on a company’s ability to meet its current liabilities without liquidating inventories that could require markdowns. It is a more stringent test of liquidity than the current ratio and may provide more insight into company liquidity in some cases. For Colgate-Palmolive, the quick ratio has declined from 0.73 in 2008 to 0.58 in 2010. While this does not necessarily mean a problem, a higher current ratio and quick ratio analysis will mean that the company will not have difficulty in meeting its short-term obligations from its operations and not by liquidating its assets.

This group of ratios emphasis can easily indicate the Amcor’s capability to meet short term debt obligations. Current ratio and Quick ratio will be calculated in this part. These two ratios are quite similar, short term creditors, such as bankers and suppliers are interested in this class of ratios, because they can measure the short term debt-paying ability of company.

According to the Equilibrium Theory, at the optimal leverage point the PV of tax expense should be equal to the financial distress costs. Simpson and Williams’ simulation model helped us to find the point, at which point the EBIT/Interest was equal to 2.8. However, financial model does not stand for the real world. The interest coverage of 2.8 is not suitable for Diageo, because there are many defects in the simulation model.

The quick ratio of 1.46 is a further analysis into the actual monetary values that are highly liquid and excluding fixed assets as part of the assets. The CFO/Avg. current liabilities also show a healthy 73%, 28% in 2004, on average of which is still higher than the industry.