Butler Lumber Company Essay

Because they have faced cash shortage trouble. Their profitability has grown for 1993 ~ 1995 period, as we can see from their I/S (e.g. Sales and Net Income, etc.). However, as its business size grows, their A/R increased, which means that it is getting difficult to collect cash. On the other hand, A/P decreased for the same period, which means that the company paid cash for A/P, resulting in critical cash shortage. Furthermore, the A/P payment period is shorter than A/R collection periods, the company’s cash problem happens to be accelerated.

The decline of inventory turnover presents the incresed possibility of inventory obsolescence which is likely to be assessed as higher business risk. In debts to equity part, the ratio in current year is much higher than that of preceeding year, which means the extent of use of debt in financing company is much higher than before. Pinnacle has used most of its borrowing capacity and has little cushion for addional debt.This action brought high business risk to Pinnacle. In addition, Pinnacle puchase more inventory in current year that that of preceeding year, and net sales are increasing also compared previous year. However, the net income is decreased significantly. These changes show expenses (maybe direct or indirect) have increased dramaticly. The company uses more expensive materials and labors to manufacure and sell products.

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.

Based on Next Annual Report and Account January (2011), the chief executive's review present the A New Normal of company overview, due to the changing consumer environment, Next PLC need to have New avenues of growth, and brand new way to control cost, also, it will be important that retailer have to generate the healthy cash flow with cautious management. Furthermore, enable to know how company efficiently use asset to generate revenue and whether there was improvement between 2010 and 2011, the activity ratios have to calculate out. The ROCE in 2010 and 2011 were 38.91%,41.79%, this number showed how profit generated by capital employed, and the growth figure of ROCE lead to level up efficiency asset used.((NEXT PLC, 2011 page43, 45) The figure for inventory turnover, receivable turnover, and payable turnover in 2010 and 2011 were 46.81 days, 54.98 days; 66.07days, 68.23 days; 83.36days,81.3days; respectively. (ibid) It is clearly show that the inventory and receivable turnover in 2010 was taken lesser day than 2011, in which means inventories took less day to sold out to costumer and the cash credit receive more faster than the 2011, besides, the payable turnover had longer period than 2011, it was also a good example to illustrate that there was more cash flow holding by company, and the overall image of these figure present that the resource had been

Although the company seems to be profitable, it has faced shortage of cash. It happened due to increase in Accounts Receivable as well as Inventories. On the other hand, Accounts Payable does not increase that rapidly and difficulties regarding cash collection become evident. Furthermore, the cash collection cycle becomes larger (59 days in year 2003, while more than 70 in year 2006).

The company’s debt ratios are 54.5% in 1988, 58.69% in 1989, 62.7% in 1990, and 67.37% in 1991. What this means is that the company is increasing its financial risk by taking on more leverage. The company has been taking an extensive amount of purchasing over the past couple of years, which could be the reason as to why net income has not grown much beyond several thousands of dollars. One could argue that the company is trying to expand its inventory to help accumulate future sales. But another problem is that the company’s

Lowe’s Companies, Inc. is the fourteenth largest retailer in America, and overall the world’s second largest home improvement retailer. They are the 108th ranked corporation on the Fortune 500 top corporations list. With an impressive in store stock of 40,000 home improvement items on hand, ranging from lumber to Home décor items, plus an additional 400,000 home improvement items available through a special order program. Lowe’s provides a onetime stop for all home improvement needs, for both the Do-It-Yourselfer, and the ever-expanding market of the Commercial Business Customer.

Columbus Custom Carpentry is a family owned business operating in a niche market of producing semi-custom interior doors for residential applications using mass customization. Founded in 1946 in Columbus, Georgia, the company has been successful thus far by using various jigs and specialized tools to reinvent antique-style doors for their market. Not being competitors in the mass-market, CCC has to focus on producing quality pieces for lower prices in order to keep their customers happy and the annual $15 million in sales. Operating out of four buildings in the Midwest, there are 135 employees split between four areas of expertise: manufacturing, warehousing, administration and marketing.

The third ratio mirroring the company’s efficiency is the creditors’ days ratio, which measures, according to Atrill, the number of days in which the business pays its debts to suppliers. Britvic PLC’s financial statements recorded in 2009 a 20 days increase in the above mentioned ratio compared to the 2005-2008 average that had a value of 149 days. Therefore, Britvic PLC paid in 2009 its debts 169 days after the enclosure of the transactions. Taking into consideration the fact that Britvic PLC is operating in the soft drinks industry, which has a medium pace of generating cash, it may be stated that this ratio’s value is high enough to reflect that Britvic PLC is risking the creditors’ goodwill. On the other hand, the company paid its short-term liabilities in approximately four months after receiving the supplies

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

On the other hand, the company has been growing constantly. In deed, according to the net income estimation for 2007 (see Table 7) the company increases its profits $25 thousand dollars more than the previous year. This is an evidence of how the company is been management and of its willing to grow year after year. Nevertheless, the first quarter of 2007 the working capital only has increased by $7 thousand dollars, which is the difference between the current assets and current liabilities but the importance of this is that according to the rotation on receivables and payable accounts, shown in Table 5 and 10, leads us to the conclusion that the company will have to pay its suppliers

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.

The Lawsons’ efficiency ratios are another section the bank will find troubling. The company’s age of payables has nearly tripled over the last four years. This can be detrimental to the company’s image and reliability including their reliability toward the bank if granted the loan. Along with increasing age of payables is increasing age of receivables and age of inventory. Indicating that Mr. Mackay is taking longer to collect his receivables and that he has purchased too much inventory. Too much inventory results can result in further issues

Also, according to its leverage ratios, the company’s debts are not only very high, but are also increasing. Its decreasing TIE ratio indicates that its capability to pay interests is decreasing. The company’s efficiency ratios indicate that despite the fact that its fixed assets are increasingly being utilized to generate sales during the years 1990-1991 as indicated by its increasing fixed asset turnover ratio, the decreasing total assets turnover indicate that overall the company’s total assets are not efficiently being put to use. Thus, as a whole its asset management is becoming less efficient. Last but not the least, based on its profitability ratios, the company’s ability to make profit is decreasing.

Asset management ratios are used to measure how effectively the company is managing its assets. Tire City Inc inventory turnover declined from 6.47 in 1994 to 6.22 in 1995. The reason is the increasing inventory from 1994 to 1995 as a percentage of increased sales. Therefore, days of Inv outstanding increased from 56.39 days in 1994 to 58.72 days in 1995. Also, receivable turnover declined from 6.58 in 1994 to 6.44 in 1995 and accordingly days of receivable outstanding increased from 55.50 days to 56.71 days. Tire City’s payable turnover has increased from 8.98 in 1994 to 9.45 in 1995 and accordingly days of payable outstanding decreased from 40.65 days in 1994 to 38.61 days in 1995. The Company cash conversions cycle has increased in 1995 to 76.82 days from 71.24 in 1994.