Southwest Gas Holdings : Asset Management And Financial Changes In Management

Debt to Equity Ratio of 1.23 more than 1 reveals that more than half of assets are financed by debt.

Free cash flow - Cash remaining from operating activities after adjusting for capital expenditures and dividends paid. Full disclosure principle - Accounting principle that dictates that companies disclose circumstances and events that make a difference to financial statement users. Generally accepted accounting

An organization’s current ratio shows how liquid the assets of the agency are by comparison to the short term debts that the agency must pay to continue its operations. This ratio is calculated by taking the assets that can be converted to cash within a year (current assets) and dividing it by the liabilities that are either currently due or will become due within a year (current liabilities). The current ratio, ideally, should be at

The cost of equity was found using CAPM, with the given market risk premium of 5%, a beta of .88, and risk-free rate of 4.03%. The beta was found by running a regression of Southwest’s percent change in stock price versus the S&P 500’s percent change in stock price for two years (June 28, 2000 to June 28, 2002). The risk-free rate was the return on a ten-year treasury note issued on June 28, 2002, according to the U.S. Treasury’s website. The tax rate of 39% was used to account for tax savings from leverage. In order to calculate the firm’s leverage, the market value of equity was found from the price per share on July 24, 2002 (Yahoo Finance) and the shares outstanding on the balance sheet of the July 10-Q report, as shown in Exhibit X. The debt value was approximated at the book value since data could not be found regarding its market value. This analysis resulted in a debt weight of 11.74% and equity weight of 88.26%. The final approximation for the weighted average cost of capital was 8.64%.

This ratio indicates a company’s liquidity. It depicts how many dollars of current assets exist for every dollar in current liabilities. The ratio is the higher, the better. Home Depot and Lowe’s has increasing current ratio while Home Depot has a slightly higher one.

Debt ratio - The Debt/Equity ratio is a measure of a company 's financial leverage and indicates what proportion of equity and debt the company is using to finance its

Free cash flow is the cash remaining from operations which indicates the company’s ability to generate cash. In this case Hershey has a much higher free cash flow amount which indicates they have a higher ability to generate cash. This calls into question Tootsie Rolls ability to repay long-term obligations.

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

When comparing the debt-to-assets ratio of McDonalds and Wendys, you have to divide the firms total liabilities by their total assets. Essentially, the debt-to-assets ratio is the primary indicator of the firms debt management. As the ratio increases or decreases, it indicates the firms changing reliance on borrowed resources. The lower the ratio the more efficient the firm will be able to

Liquidity ratio. The firm’s liquidity shows a downward trend through time. The current ratio is decreasing because the growth in current liabilities outpaces the growth of current assets. The quick ratio is also declining but not as fast as the current ratio. From 1991 to 1992, it only decreased 0.35 units while the current ratio decreased 0.93 units. Looking at the common size balance sheet, we also see that the percentage of inventory is growing from 33% to 48% indicating Mark X could not convert its inventory to cash.

The current ratio is a liquidity calculation meant to measure a business’s capability to pay short-term obligations. This calculation is derived from company's total current assets divided by its total current liabilities. Steve Madden’s current ratio for the quarter ending in June of 2016 equaled 2.47. 2.47 would generally indicate that Steve Madden shows good short-term financial strength. Over the past 13 years, Steve Madden’s highest current ratio was 12.03 and its lowest was 2.03. Over that time frame its median current ratio was 4.83. Guess’s current ratio for the quarter ending in April of 2016 equaled 3.21. 3.21 would generally indicate that Guess may not be efficiently using its short-term financing facilities or its current assets.

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

Long-term solvency for Ford Motor Company also appears to be strong. The company’s times interest earned ratio of 1.96 means that it can cover its interest charges on current debt issues almost two times over. This is a good sign that bankruptcy is not eminent and the company is solvent in the long-run. A higher debt to equity ratio means a company gets a larger portion of its financing from creditors than shareholders, though higher is a subjective measure and depends on the industry. (Wahlen et al, 2008) Automotive manufacturers tend to have debt to equity ratios above 2 because the industry is capital intensive. (Debt/equity ratio, 2014) Ford’s debt to equity ratio in 2011 was 10.89, far higher than the industry standard, potentially due to the circumstances of the time. The financial crisis of 2008 resulted in major financial bailouts across the automotive industry. These large levels of debt to the government would increase the debt to equity ratios of all companies that accepted the money.

The second ratio to evaluate is Debt-To-Total Assets Ratio, which is calculated as total debt divided by total assets. Halliburton’s debt-to-total assets of .43 has improved from the 2009 ratio of .47 and the 2008 ratio of .46 given it a stronger position in the industry. The low level shows very manageable debt allowing Halliburton to take advantage of the rising demand for oil and

Debt to equity ratio is now 1.50, compared to 2.49 (showing less debt compared to equity)