Advanced Financial Analysis Management
This course explains elements of financial statement analysis. It will enable participants to ask the right questions, see the real risks facing businesses and investors, feel more confident in their ability to comment on business activities and performance, and analyze financial health for management. These skills and the required technical knowledge will be put into practice throughout the course using interactive examples and case studies, putting theory and technique into context.
· List and differentiate between the important components of basic financial statements
· Explain financial statements’ ratios and design Excel sheets and graphs for financial statements analysis
· Assess the quality of financial reports and evaluate quality of the reported earnings and cash flows
· Analyze the financial performance of a company over a period of time and draw conclusions regarding its sustainability
· Forecast financial statements based on the analysis of the historical performance of a company
Introduction to advanced financial analysis
· Users of financial data
· Content of the annual financial report
· Non-financial elements of the annual financial report
· Income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement
Basics of industry analysis and analyzing ratios using Excel
· Top-down approach for analysis
· Macroeconomic factors to assess country exposure
· Indicators of GDP, unemployment rates, inflation and interest rates
· Deficit-to-GDP, debt-to-GDP and GDP growth rates
· Michael Porter’s five forces shaping an industry’s long term profitability
· Common size analysis to improve comparability
· Calculating trends and growth patterns
· Ratio analysis to assess key aspects of company performance:
– Profitability
– Liquidity
– Efficiency and working capital management
– Financing structure and risk
· Graphical representation
Financial cosmetics and creative accounting
· Signals to read from inventory balances
· LIFO liquidation technique
· Inventory net realizable value
· Capitalizing vs expensing costs affecting financial statements and ratios
· Interest capitalization
· Research and development costs capitalization
· Depreciation methods on financial statements
· Impairment of business units and operating segments
· Revaluation of long-lived assets
· Operating lease or finance lease
· Vehicles for balance sheet manipulation
Assessing quality of financial reports
· Framework for assessing a company’s quality of financial reports
· Potential problems that affect the quality of financial reports
· Evaluating the earnings quality of a company
· Evaluating the cash flow quality of a company
· Indicators of balance sheet quality
· Sources of information about risk
Financial forecasting techniques for analysts
· Revenue forecasting: bottom up versus top down
· Forecasting cost of goods sold
· Forecasting fixed and variable costs
· Forecasting balance sheet accounts
· Fixed assets forecasting
· Retained earnings and dividend pay-out policy
Chief accountants, accounting managers, senior accountants, finance directors, finance managers, financial analysts, financial controllers, financial accounts managers, heads of finance departments, credit controllers, corporate financiers, credit risk analysts, bankers, and relationship managers.