Costco financial statement analysis

Description
The presentation explaining Costco wholesale corporation discusses Financing growth, income statement, Year on year performance and comparison with its competitors Walmart, Sears, BJ.

COSTCO WHOLESALE CORPORATION FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS

Topics covered
• Financing growth by COSTCO • What is common size income statement & preparing common size statements • Year on year performance of Costco & competitors based on its common size income statement • Costco’s performance vis-à-vis its competitors • Suggestions to Margarita Torres based on the analysis

FINANCING GROWTH STRATEGIES

Value to customers
• Not marking up products more than 14% over distributors price • Optimal container size • Delivering lowest per unit price • Target markets • Middle class customers • Small businesses • Kirkland Signature store brand • Brand name quality at discount prices

Value to manufacturers
• Broad distribution channel • Few SKU’s

• Run continuous production lines
• Powerful purchaser

Ancillary services
• Numerous products shoppers can add to basket • Increased sales per store

Operating efficiency
• Cost conscious approach • Low gross margin on products • High return on assets • High inventory turnover • Lower operating expenses than competitors
• Possible increase in tax efficiency

Minimizing capital expenditure
• No frills warehousing

• Cross-docking
• Reduce transportation • Full capacity utilization

Growth drivers
? No dividend ? Increase in current liabilities
? Decrease in liquidity

? Capital structure
? Debit/equity ratio of approximately 1 ? Moderate financial leverage
? High return on equity ? Reinvestment of earnings

Common Size income statement
A financial statement, which expresses the different values in form of percentage, is called a Common size financial statement

• Horizontal common size statement (trend analysis) •Vertical common size statement

Common Size Income Statement
• Financial statements reveal the financial credibility of a company.
CSI components

• Helps in comparing two companies, which differ in size.

Balance sheet

Income statement

Net assets are taken as 100 %

Net sales are taken as 100 %

Horizontal analysis
• Horizontal analysis ( or trend analysis ) shows the changes between years in the financial data in percentage and dollar form. • Highlights changes that are unusual.

Formulas
• Dollar change = Current year fig. – Base yr. fig.

• Percentage change = Dollar change X 100 Base year fig.

E.g.

Trend percentages
• Trend percentages state several years financial data in terms of a base year which equals 100%. • Horizontal analysis can be even more useful when data from a number of years are used to compute trend percentages.

Trend analysis
• Trend % = Current yr. amount Base yr. amount X 100

Trend analysis (e. g.)
• Berry products financial info. (2001 – ’05)

• The base year is 2001 and its amounts = 100%

• Analysis - cost of goods sold is increasing faster than sales, which is slowing the increase in gross margin.

Trend analysis ( graph )

Vertical analysis
• Vertical analysis focuses relationships among financial statement items at a given point of time • In a common size financial statement each item is expressed as a percentage

Vertical analysis
• In income statements, all items are expressed as a percentage of sales • In balance sheets, all items are usually expressed as a percentage of total assets

e. g.

Common size statement for comparison
• Useful when comparing data from diff. companies

• In 2002, Wendy’s net income is $219Mn and McDonald’s net income is $893Mn. Comparison is misleading due to diff. sizes of the companies. • Wendy’s net income as 8% of the sales and McDonald’s net income is 5.80% of sales. In this light, Wendy’s performance is better than that of McDonald’s.

Advantages
• The size of the companies being compared is not relevant. The companies being compared may be small or big. Hence, it is termed as common size. • Removes any kind of bias • Changes in different values pertaining to company's performance can also be ascertained during a particular period. Eg: to know how the cost of goods sold over a span of time has changed, the common size financial statement can be helpful. • Predicts future trends and analyzes prevailing trends in the industry.

Limitations
As with financial statements in general, the interpretation of common size statements is subject to many limitation, in the accounting data used to construct them. • Different accounting policies may be used by different firms or by the same firm at different points of time. Adjustments must be made • Different firms may use different accounting calendars, so accounting periods may not be directly comparable.

COSTCO’S & COMPETITORS’ COMMON SIZE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS & ANALYSIS

Year on Year Vertical Common Size Income Statements

COSTCO

SEARS

Wal-Mart

BJ
WHOLESALE CORP.

Costco vis-à-vis competitors – vertical common size income statements.

• 1997

• 1998

• 1999

• 2000

• 2001

Vertical Common – Size Income Statement Analysis

COSTCO

BJ Wholesale corp

High operational efficiency

Lower net income in 2001 due to lease obligation

SEARS

WAL-MART

High operating expenses

High gross margin Higher operational efficiency Lower operating expenses

Year – on – Year Horizontal Common - Size Income Statements

COSTCO

SEARS, ROEBUCK

WAL-MART

BJ WHOLESALE CORP.

Year – on – Year Horizontal Common - Size Income Statements Analysis

Costco

• The graph of net sales has been above the oper. Expenses hence showing that the firm is growing without increase in oper.exp. • Consistent gross margin over time.

Sears

• Sharp decline in the gross income around 2001 alongwith rising oper.expenses as compared to the net sales

Wal-mart BJ wholesale Corporation

• Consistent increase in net sales and gross income • Stable growth

•A sharp decline in the gross income between 2000-01 •Rising operating expenses do not contribute to sales

Suggestions to Margarita Torres

• As per the analysis,

• Costco & Wal-mart are market leaders.
• Monitor the performance of Costco and keep the existing shares of Costco • Wal-mart is a good option from an investment perspective
Margarita should purchase Wal-mart shares as well ; retaining the present shares of Costco



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