Ann Talyor Strategy

Net Margin is the ratio of net profits to revenues of a company. It is used as an indicator of a company’s ability to control its costs and how much profit it makes for every dollar of revenue it generates. Net Margin is calculated using the formula: Net Margin = (Net Profit / Revenues ) * 100 Net margins vary from company to company with individual industries having typically expected ranges given similar constraints within the industry. For example, a retail company might be expected to have low net margins while a technology company could generate margins of 15-20% or more. Companies that increase their net margins over time generally see their share price rise over time as well as the company is increasing the rate at which it turns dollars earned into profits.

The company have generated very low operating cash flows, which is caused by a negative net income(16, 55) in 94,95, again with sales going down and cost of goods sold increasing. The company current ratio (2.3, 2.1, 2.5) in 93, 94, 95 are indicating satisfactory but when analyze quick ratio (1.1, 1.1, 1.3), and we also know that sales are down which mean more inventories. Now the account payable days has been increasing (49, 62, and 66). They have been delaying there payment which mean more cash on

In this task I’m going to analyse the figures on cash flow that I created in P3 and justify why you think the business might have problems also provide range of solutions.

First of which, is the current ratio. It has been rapidly declining since 2000. To me this indicates that there is a liquidity issue. Each year their trade debt increase exceeds the increase of net income for the company. As a result, the working capital has taken a nosedive from $58,650 in 2002 to only $5,466 in 2003.

Increase in current liabilities Substantial increase in current liabilities weakened the company’s liquidity position. Its current liabilities were US$2,063.94 million at the end of FY2010, a 48.09% increase compared to the previous year. However, its current assets recorded a marginal increase of 25.07% - from US$1,770.02 million at the end of FY2009 to US$2,213.72 million at the end of FY2010. Following this, the company’s current ratio declined from 1.27 at the end of the FY2009 to 1.07 at the end of FY2010. A lower current ratio indicates that the company is in a weak financial position, and it may find it difficult to meet its day-to-day obligations.

In terms of industry profitability, it appears that profit margins have a tendency to fall. This is because competition is high and customers tend to buy low-priced high-value items. The average gross margin and net profit margin is 37.1% and 14.3%, respectively (MSN Money, 2010).

So while the company increased its net income, it has done so with diminishing profit margins.

The liquidity ratios of the firm are slightly below the industry averages. This is due to inventory and accounts receivable making up a significantly larger portion of the current assets than cash and marketable securities. This may be indicative of a problem with inventory management and/or collection on accounts.

Jones over forecasts his inventory and has a low inventory turnover ratio. This drastically increases his accounts payable, as he isn’t able to pay due to low cash inflow. His account’s payable increased by nearly 9 percent in 2006. Nearly half of his current assets are in inventory. Also Jones isn’t able to take advantage of the cash discounts offered by his suppliers due to his slow cash collection process. In order to perform well, the company must improve its inventory system and its cash collection policies.

2. The single most important assessment in Cash Flows in the “cash flow from financial operations” because it provides an overlook on management’s operating decisions. In this case, we can see that Reebok had reported positive cash flows from operations, for example in 1990 reported $39.2M while LA Gear reported a negative (40M) the same year. Looking closely, we can see that LA Gear was retaining huge quantities of inventory while at the same time, not collecting enough money from customers (A/R). Hence we can conclude that for Reebok, operations was a source of cash but on the other hand, LA Gear was quite the opposite: operations was a use (or drain) of cash. Turning our attention to “cash flows from financing activities” we can see that more differences. Reebok is borrowing little money, instead it is paying loans. LA Gear is borrowing huge quantities of money, for example in 1990 it borrowed $56M. As a result of this, we can see where the money to finance

The Net Profit Margin in 2012 was 10.5% while in 2013 it was 66.6%. This increase in the Net Profit Margin can be attributed to the increase in net profits after taxes despite the fact that there was a slight decrease in revenues.

This is due to the fact that inventory and accounts receivable are left out of the equation. Based on the cash ratio, this company carries a low cash balance. This may be an indication that they are aggressively investing in assets that will provide higher returns. We need to make sure that we have enough cash to meet our obligations, but too much cash reduces the return earned by the company.

Operating profit margin figures in the table above show the return from net sales[13]. However profit margin ratios are high enough for the 3 years, there is a fall from 12.86% to 11.26% during 2011-12. Sales revenue increases with a higher rate than gross profit so there is a poor

Although has seen some growth in certain segments of their company, such as Loft and Outlet, the Ann Taylor stores have not fared as well. As stated by Katherine Krill, “sales for the fourth quarter increased 10% to $567 million with comparable sales up 5%. Excluding charges, net income was $5.5 million or $0.10 per diluted share compared to net income of $11 million or $0.19 per share a year ago. Overall, the results reflected strong performance across all channels of the LOFT brand and in the e-commerce and factory channels of the Ann Taylor brand, offset by significantly lower-than-anticipated results in the Ann Taylor stores channel .” (Seeking Alpha, 2012) Due to the competitive focus of the fashion retail industry using differentiation strategy makes the most sense. In order to draw consumers to the ANN brand of clothing

The management of cash is essential to the survival of any organization. Managing an organization’s financial operation requires knowledge of the economy and ways to maximize revenue. For any organization to operate on a daily basis adequate cash flow is required. Without cash management the organization will be unable to function because there is no cash readily available in case of inconsistencies in the market. Cash is also needed to keep the cycle of the company’s operations going.