Analysis of Financial Statements - Minicase Chapter 3

Financial statements paint a picture of financial health of an organization. Important aspects of the financial statement of a health care organization are ratios. Analysis of ratios show how two numbers relate or compare to one another. Ratios are a way for organizations to make comparison. These comparisons not only encompass what is happening presently but can also be used to make comparisons about numbers and ratios over time. Ratios are a way for organizations to compare themselves with competitors and the industry. (Finkler, Kovner, and Jones, 2007). There are four major ratios that financial statements analyze 1) liquidity 2) activity 3) leverage and 4) profitability. The financial statement for Mayo Health System

Wells Fargo shows a much higher profitability ratio than Samsung, with over 8X that of Samsung. This is to be expected as services are typically more profitable than hardware sales which operate on leaner margins. Wells Fargo also outperforms Samsung significantly on return on sales with over 25X better performance. This again is attributable to better margins on services than hardware. Wells Fargo has a much stronger return on equity than Samsung with a Dupont ratio over 5X higher than Samsung's. Samsung has a stronger financial leverage ratio than Wells Fargo with almost 20% lower ratio for Samsung. Samsung also has a much lower total asset turnover than Wells Fargo. This is attributable to the quick turnover of assets in the manufacturing industry compared to the slow turnover of assets in the financial services sector.

Ratio analysis are useful tools when judging the performance of a company by weighing and evaluating the operating performance (Block-Hirt). There are 13 significant ratios that can separate by four main categories,

These ratios will help us see how effective a company is at using their sales or assets and turning this into income.

Ratios are highly important profit tools in financial analysis that help financial analysts implement plans that improve profitability, liquidity, financial structure, reordering, leverage, and interest coverage. Although ratios report mostly on past performances, they can be predictive too, and provide lead indications of potential problem areas. Financial ratios are important because they help investors make decisions to buy hold or sell securities.

This paper examines financial ratio analysis by defining, the three groups of stakeholders that use financial ratios, the five different kinds of ratios used and their applications, the analytical tools used in analysis, and finally financial ratio analysis limitations and benefits.

Ratios are important in any type of business, because ratios are sued all the way across the board. many financial ratios are used for the purpose of credit analysis, to see where a company stands financially. The three types of ratios are liquidity, solvency, and profitability. Within these main ratio types there are also 8 other basic types of ratios.

Financial ratios are great indicators to find a firm’s performance and financial situation. Most of the ratios are able to be calculated through the use of financial statements provided by the firm itself. They show the relationship between two or more financial variables that can be used to analyze trends and to compare the firm’s financials with other companies to further come up with market values or discount rates, etc.

Understanding financial ratios are critical to understanding if a business is making sound financial decisions as well as helpful in identifying trends over time that can help measure the financial state of a company. Financial ratios also allow a company to run trend analysis which enables the company to see how they have been performing over time as well as allowing for short-term financial plans in order to course correct if necessary. Some of the most common financial ratios are earnings per share, liquidity ratios, debt ratios, return on assets, and return on equity ratios.

Ratio analysis are useful tools when judging the performance of a company by weighing and evaluating the operating performance (Block-Hirt). There are 13 significant ratios that can separate by four main categories,

Financial ratios can be used for a quick comparison to other companies in the industry and to the same company over time. They allow you to ignore the numbers and focus on their relationships.

with the massive amount of numbers in company financial statements. For example, they can compute the percentage of net profit a company is generating on the funds ithas deployed. All other things remaining the same, a company that earns a higher percentage of profit compared to other companies is a better investment option.

The calculation of ratios is the calculation technique for analyzing a company’s financial performance that divides or standardize one accounting measure by another economically relevant measure. Financial ratios can be used as a tool to demonstrate financial statement users for making valid comparisons of firm operating performance, over time for the same firm and between comparable companies. External investors are mostly interested in gaining insights about a firm’s profitability, asset management, liquidity, and solvency.

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”.

Ratio analysis is generally used by the company to provide some information on how the company has performed during that year, so that the parties involved including shareholders, lenders, investors, government and other users could make some analysis before making any further decision towards that particular company. As mentioned by Gibson (1982a cited in British Accounting Review, 2002 pg. 290) where he believes that the use of ratio analysis is such an effective tool to evaluate the company’s finance, and to predict its future financial state. Ratios are simply divided in several categories; these are the profitability, liquidity, efficiency and gearing.