Introduction
With the development of multinational companies, financial risk has played an increasingly remarkable role in financial market. In order to overmaster interest risk, currency and price risks, multinational corporates tend to hedge their exposure to financial risk. In practice, Coca-Cola Company has charged its business for a period of one century and made it as one of the principal players in the beverage industry. Coca-Cola Company markets have 500 non-alcoholic beverage brands in more than 200 countries. The essay discuss the pros and cons of hedging and analysis the financial statement of Coca-Cola. Eventually, hedging is a reasonable secession in risk management for multinational companies.
Hedging is a significant way in risk management
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
This case shows us that apart from transaction, translation and economic exposure to currency risk, firms also have the very real strategic impact on their competitive position from competitive exposure. Apart from GM’s exposure to the yen which is reflected in their financial statements, their competitive position vis-à-vis Japanese manufacturers is affected by a potentially declining yen. This is because a declining yen reduces the Japanese manufacturers’ $ cost, enabling them to pass on some of the benefit to US customers and thus taking some of GM’s market share. This will impact GM’s top and bottom line. However, GM has a difficult decision regarding managing this risk.
American Barrick is the largest gold producer in North America. The implementation of the gold-hedging program differentiated the firm from other major gold rivals and improved its reserve and financial strength. In 1995, American Barrick ’s latest gold find necessitated the company to determine a new hedge strategy for its gold production.
Mr. Lee and the other executives expect to generate a higher profit from hedging since they have majority of their personal wealth invested into the firm. The focus of any hedging program should always be to minimize the firm’s risk of loss, but that does not mean the they will
The current 50% hedging policy executed at the fund level has served well for OTPP for the past ten years, contributing to the fund’s positive returns. The FX Hedge Program not only has minimized the downside risk, but has also limited the upside potential. If OTPP decided not to implement a hedging program in 1996, they would have lost about $983 million CAD over the ten year period (1995-2005) which is valued at 2% of the portfolio. With the hedging program, OTPP was able to reduce the overall loss to about $469 million CAD, but also limited the gain from the depreciation of the pound.(Exhibit 1) Hedging is an excellent short-term risk minimizing strategy for long term investors, sustaining a continual payout of pensions during volatile times in OTPP’s invested currency markets. Currently, approximately 21% of OTPP’s net assets are exposed to foreign currency risk. Consequently, it is essential that OTPP maintain a risk management program of hedging, as slight currency fluctuations can significantly affect the value of the fund. Similarly to continual renewal of swaps, hedging can be a very expensive risk management strategy.
General Motors Corporation, the world’s largest automaker, has an extensive global outreach, which places the firm in competition with automakers worldwide, and subjects itself to significant exchange rate exposure. In particular, despite most of its revenues and production being derived from North America, depreciating yen rates pose problems for the firm indirectly through economic exposure. While GM possesses ‘passive’ hedging strategies for balance sheet and income statement exposures, management has not yet quantified or recognized solutions to possible losses from the indirect competitive exposure it now shared with Japanese automakers in the U.S import
The analysis of a company's financial statements helps in the determination of both the weaknesses and strengths of the concerned entity. Further, such an analysis helps in the determination of the future viability of firms. There are a wide range of techniques utilized in the analysis of financial statements. In that regard, it is important to note that the relevance of a horizontal, vertical as well as ratio analysis of a company's financial statements cannot be overstated. This is more so the case when it comes to the interpretation of the various dollar amounts presented in both the balance sheet and the income statement. In this text, I carry out a horizontal, vertical as well as ratio analysis of both The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, Inc. The analysis' results will be critical in the evaluation of each company's performance. Findings will be used as a basis for recommendations on how each company can improve its financial status.
This case explores the operating exposure of Jaguar PLC in 1984, just as the government is about to relinquish control and take the company public via an IPO. The primary concern of the CFO is that Jaguar sells over 50% of its cars in the US, while its production costs and factories are U.K.-based. This currency mismatch creates operating exposure for the firm that needs to be hedged.
This case explores the operating exposure of Jaguar PLC in 1984, just as the government is about to relinquish control and take the company public via an IPO. The primary concern of the CFO is that Jaguar sells over 50% of its cars in the US, while its production costs and factories are U.K.-based. This currency mismatch creates operating exposure for the firm that needs to be hedged.
In order to reduce risk, the company is using two hedging derivatives: forward contracts and put options to sell dollars. The aim of the paper is to determine an appropriate hedging policy which answers two main questions: how much to hedge, and in what proportions of forwards
In January 2006, company-owned bottling operations were brought together to form the Bottling Investments operating group, now the second-largest bottling partner in the Coca-Cola system in terms of unit case volume.
Currency hedging involves deliberately taking on a new risk that offsets an existing one, thereby reducing a businesses' exposure to negative change in exchange rates, interest rates, or commodity pricing (Economists.com, n.d.). "Currency hedging allows a business owner to greatly reduce or eliminate the uncertainties attached to any foreign-currency transaction" (Fraser, 2001). It is impossible to predict the how much a currency will be worth on the exact day that a company will be converting it. With hedging, the uncertainly is gone. Many companies that have international operations are constantly juggling multiple transactions, with
One type of hedging is using a forward contract. This method is to lock in a FX position that would provide stability and not succumb to the fluctuations of FX rates. By locking in an FX rate, it gives the company the right to the currency exchange rate specified for a future time. This means that if FX is to adverse or benefit of FX will be minimized for the future.
The three largest are: (1) Frito-Lay North America, (2) Frito-Lay International and (3) Gatorade/Tropicana. Pepsi’s major liabilities include:
If the firm’s primary concern is to reduce the costs of financial distress and it can faithfully communicate its true probability of default, the firm should minimise the likelihood of the firm value falling below the market value of debt and/or avoid cash flow shortfall. If hedging is prompted to reduce the demand for costly external finance and the investment volume is independent of the risk factor(s), the firm should perfectly hedge all hedge able risks to minimise cash flow variability. If the firm wants to minimise the demand for external finance and the optimal investment volume is perfectly correlated with the risk factor(s), the firm has a natural hedge and, therefore, does not need to manage risk actively. If external debt has to be raised, the company should minimise contracting costs. To achieve this goal, the firm can faithfully define a conservative risk management policy by bond covenants or reputation building, it can choose preferred stock or convertible debt instead of straight debt and it can constrain its dividend payments. Once the hedging policy is identified, the firm has to trade-off hedging costs and the benefits of hedging (Fok, 1997). The competing approach to value enhancing risk management techniques claims that managers will maximise their expected utility rather than the market value of equity. This approach may have other implications for risk management,
Evidence from statistical tests suggesting a significant impact of foreign exchange gains and losses on profitability corroborates comments from the financial statements of sample companies for this research. However, this evidence is unlike those of Lee and Suh (2012) who argued that “exchange rate changes explain less than 2% of the variation in foreign operations profitability for most industries and the impact of exchange rate changes on profitability is not significant’’. This conclusion was reached after an empirical study involving 11 different industries. The results of this research are also dissimilar to those of Pantzalis et al. (2001) who finds that only 15% of 220 multinational companies in the US evidence exchange rate exposures that are statistically significant. Evidence from these other studies are also similar to those of most studies conducted using multinationals (Bartov and Bodnar 2012; Griffin and Stulz 2001; Muller and Verschoor 2006). The lack of significant exposure as highlighted by these studies have been ascribed to the hedging activities adopted by Multinational companies to reduce the impact of foreign exchange exposure (Allayannis and Ofek 2001; Lee and Suh 2012).