Hampton Machine Tool Company Analysis

Be Our Guest’s balance sheet shows good signs of liquidity. Current Ratios for the past four years have remained above 1 proving that the company can handle its current liabilities. The current ratios are not extremely high (19941.27, 1995- 2.17, 1996- 1.15 and 1997- 1.16), but they can cover the current liabilities. It is important to note that the company is operating on a thin line because the current assets are barely covering the current liabilities. This is particularly unpleasant because we are dealing with a company operating in a seasonal business. It is a concern that the current ratio slightly eroded after 1995, and this is primarily due to Be Our Guest converting the bank line into long term debt in

The company’s increase in inventory (illustrated on the statement of cash flows) rose after 1970 and culminated by a drastic increase in 1973. This increase in inventory (especially in 1973) appears to be heavily financed by short-term and long-term borrowing rather than the typical accounts payable. This is a bit unusual and in 1973 (when they acquired the greatest amount of debt equity, their accounts payable decreased. Their sales were not sufficient to offset the large outflows of inventory related costs. Furthermore, Grant’s decentralization was also a cause of their financial woes because rather than corporately controlling credit extension and credit terms, they allowed each store manager to set their own policies (and manipulate them as they desired). This disastrous policy imploded in 1975 when the company had to make a $155.7 million provision for bad debt expense. So not only did the company have substantial debt and bad debt to equity ratios, they were forced to write off about 8.8% of their total sales from 1975.

This bank loan helped finance the increase in property and other related assets. The sponaneous assets that were increased as a result of an increase in sales were financed by an increase in sponaneous liabilities. Spontaneous liabilities have grown by 35%, which supports the claim that they finance the increase in accounts receivable and inventories. In the period between 1993-1995, the financial strength of Clarkson Lumber has deteriorated significantly. As seen from the financial ratios excel spreadsheet attached, the current and quick ratios have been gone down substantially. This means that the company’s ability to meet its short term obligations has deteriorated. Furthermore, the return on sales and return on assets have also gone down, which means that their increase in net income has not stayed consistent with the increase in sales and increase in assets to finance these sales. Their falling inventory turnover ratio means that even though their sales are increasing, they are not moving inventory at the same pace they had before. Their low accounts receivable turnover ratio and high dales sales outstanding indicates that there’s a large amount of money tied in this account.

As focusing on each of the five management assertions for the inventory account, we discovered that there are some risky areas that indicate the need for further attention during the audit. First of all, for existence or occurrence, all items in the inventory account must physically exist and be available for sale. Thus, the auditors should physically count finished goods, copper rod, and plastic inventories, and determine actual increase of inventories at year end. Also, they should select items from the inventory ledger and locate them and reconcile the quantity. Second, for completeness, the auditors should make sure that all existing inventories have been recorded completely , go around the warehouse and ensure all the inventories are recorded in the inventory ledger. Third, for valuation or allocation, the auditors should make sure that Laramie Wire manufacturing sticks with one valuation method(For inventory items, valuation is based on the lower of cost or market value, with several alternative methods for calculating cost), find out if there is any scrap inventory that needs to be recorded and written off ,and ask about obsolescence items. Fourth, for rights and obligations, the auditor should ask them if there is any consigned inventory at their warehouse. If there is, those inventories should not be recorded in the company's inventory ledger. Finally, for presentation and disclosure, the auditors should review the company's financial

A/ Hampton Machine Tool Company was unable to repay its loan on time due to several factors. One of such factors is the fact that the stock repurchase, for which the loan was initially requested, was a major cash disbursement of $3 million. In the period between November 1978 and August 1979, stock repurchase represented 58% of total expenditures for that period, while inventory purchases represented 42% of total expenditures.

Butler Lumber Company, a lumber retailer with a rapid growth rate, is faced with the problem of cash flow shortage. In order to support this profitable business, BLC needs a great amount of cash. The loan of $250,000 from Suburban National and a line of credit of up to $465,000 from Northrop National Bank are the two choices provided. After a brief review of the operation and financial conditions of BLC, we first make analysis of the credit level of BLC from the perspective of banker. Although the feedback from all the firms that had business dealings with Butler are quite positive , both solvency and liquidity condition and the mortgage indicates that it is not a wise

In addition, as we are comparing the profit margin and operating profit margin, we notice that interest expense, from 2006 to 2010, consumed a relative small portion of sales proceeds comparing to 2011. In 2011, the profit margin for HH is -1.46% and the operating profit margin for HH is -0.74%. Since profit margin includes interest expense in the calculation while operating profit margin does not, we can conclude that HH has about the same amount in interest expense as the amount of operating loss before interest. This finally doubles the amount of company’s loss at the end of the cycle. This big amount of interest expense leads us to study HH’s leverage ratios.

DO YOU AGREE WITH MR. WILSON 'S ESTIMATE OF THE COMPANY 'S LOAN REQUIREMENTS? HOW MUCH WILL HE NEED TO FINANCE THE EXPECTED EXPANSION IN SALES TO $ 5.5 MILLION IN 2006 AND TO TAKE ALL TRADE DISCOUNTS?

A/ Hampton Machine Tool Company was unable to repay its loan on time due to several factors. One of such factors is the fact that the stock repurchase, for which the loan was initially requested, was a major cash disbursement of $3 million. In the period between November 1978 and August 1979, stock repurchase represented 58% of total expenditures for that period, while inventory purchases represented 42% of total expenditures.

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.

2. Forecast the firm’s financial statements for 2002 and 2003. What will be the external financing requirements of the firm in those years? Can the firm repay its loan within a reasonable period? In order to forecast the financial statements of 2002 and 2003, the following assumptions need to be made. The growth of sales is 15%, same as 2001, which is estimated by managers. The rate of production costs and expenses per sales is constant to 50%. Administration and selling expenses is the average of last 4 years. The depreciation is $7.8 million per year, which is calculated by $54.6 million divided by 7 years. Tax rate is 24.5%, which is provided. The dividend is $2 million per year only when the company makes profits. Therefore, we assume that there will be no dividend in 2003. Gross PPE will be $27.3 million (54.6/2) per year. We also assume there is no more long term debt, because any funds need in the case are short term debt, it keeps at $18.2 million. According to the forecast, Star River needs external financing approximately $94 million and $107 million in 2002 and 2003, respectively. In order to analysis if the company can repay the debt, we need to know the interest coverage ratio, current ratio and D/E ratio. The interest coverage ratios through the forecast were 1.23 and 0.87 respectively, which is the danger signal to the managers, because in 2003, the profits even not

Based on our projections for the years 2002-2004, the biggest driver that effects debt is the company’s operating expenses. Based on the history of the upward trend of operating expenses, our recommendation is that The Body Shop needs to concentrate on lowering the operating expenses, and keeping those expenses around 45% or lower in order to avoid borrowing money. Our 45% recommendation includes a safety net which will prevent having The Body Shop borrowing cash if sale do not continue to climb at a significant rate.

Overall regards to liquidity ratios, the higher the number the better; however, a too high also indicates that the firms were not using their resources to their full potential. Current ratio of 1.0 or greater shows that a company can pay its current liabilities with its current assets. JWN’s ratio increased from 2.06 in 2007 to 2.57 in 2010, and slightly decreased to 2.16 in 2011. JWN’s cash ratio increased significantly from 22% in 2007 to 80% in 2010. JWN has a cash ratio of 73% in 2011, which is useful to creditors when deciding how much debt they would be willing to extend to JWN. In addition, JWN also has moderate CFO ratio of 46%, indicating the companies’ ability to pay off their short term liabilities with their operating cash

The company lost money almost every year since its leveraged buyout by Coniston Partners in 1989. The income generated was not sufficient to service the interest expenses of the company which stood at $2.62B in 1996. From Exhibit 1, we can say that interest coverage ratio computed as EBIT / Interest Expense was 1.31 in 1989 and has been decreasing over years and currently stands at 0.59. This raises a question of how the company can meet its interest payments without raising cash or selling assets.

Even though the company has been turning in profits, the ineffective collection practice, not availing trade discounts on time and ineffective inventory management has led the company in need of larger financing needs.