Royal Dutch Shell: Financial Statement Analysis

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The doc about the financial statement analysis of Royal Dutch Shell.

Financial Reporting Project
Financial Statement Analysis, Theme 3

ASSIGNMENT 2 INITIAL REVIEW OF ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS Name of your company: Royal Dutch Shell The purpose of this assignment is to review and understand the basic information that is reported in your company’s Annual Report with primary emphasis on the financial statements. Organization of the Annual Report In general, you will find Annual Reports organized into the six different sections discussed below. 1. Financial Highlights – Somewhere in the first few pages or so you will find a summary of financial highlights covering as many as 10 or 20 years. Often this section contains a variety of charts and graphs. These data are not financial statements but merely a shorthand summary of the firm over a number of years. 2. The Company and Its Products – Near the beginning of the report, there is usually a fairly lengthy section about the company and its products. (If the company has had a good year, there will probably be lots of color pictures of the executives. If the company has a bad year, they might leave out pictures of the executives’ altogether.) This section of the report includes mostly public relations-type information. It’s a chance for the company to brag about its products, people, and activities. 3. Management discussion and analysis - following the public relation section of the annual report you will find the section titled management s discussion and analysis. Often this section is referred to in the business press by its initials MD &A. here management is required to identify significant events trends and developments affecting the firm and to discuss managements thinking on these matters. 4. Financial statements and the notes to the financial statements – Following the MD&A, you should find the financial statements and the accompanying notes. Generally there will be a balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows and a statement of shareholder’s equity. Often each financial statement will have the word consolidated in its title to indicate that the corporation owns one or more subsidiaries and that the financial results of the subsidiaries have been combined with those of the parent company to produce a single set of financial statement. The notes are an integral part of the financial statement because they disclose the accounting methods used by the firms provide additional details regarding certain amounts on the face of the financial statements and disclose additional matters not otherwise revealed by financial statements. Financial statements without the accompanying notes comprise incomplete disclosure and can be misleading. 5. Statement of management’s responsibility and the report of the independent accountant’s (or auditor’s report) – Read them carefully. These statements reveal (1) who is responsible for the content of the financial statements and (2) whether the financial statements present fairly the financial situation of the firm.

6. Basic company facts – Following the notes to the financial statements there are usually two or three pages of basic facts about the company. E.g. List of offices and directors, stock exchange listing, state of incorporation. Completing the assignment 1. Read the management discussion and analysis section. What is the general tone of the management’s comments in this section? Was the most recent year a positive or negative experience for the company? Does management appear optimistic and pessimistic about the future? Discuss. The management was satisfactory with financial performance of Royal Dutch Shell plc. On the centenary year of its existence it has achieved a record income of $31.9 billion and a return of $13.4 billion to shareholders, proving its superiority once again. Strategy: As is evident in the previous years it has stuck to its clear long-term strategy of investing heavily in technology, to innovate and find efficient ways of producing oil and gas. Some of their investments were in Sakhalin, Ormen Lange gas field, North Sea gas, etc. Truths: According to them the three hard truths will determine their future existence. The rising population and living standard will increase the demand for more energy producing components. At the same time day by day it is becoming difficult to access “easy” oil and gas. The increased use of these fossil fuels emits carbon dioxide. Thus, in turn pressing them to improve their technology. Performance: Safety is their starting point for whatever they do. In year 2007 they had the fewest number of recordable incidents ever. It suffered less number of fatalities among employees and contractors than year before. But their aim is to achieve zero fatalities. To achieve this they have had two global safety days and major drive to improve process safety. Their strategy of more upstream, profitable downstream is on track. They invested lots of money in integrated lifelong projects that would pay dividends for decades to come. At the same time they take into account sustainability, including biodiversity and respect for local communities with construction any of their projects as well as their operations. Their Exploration & Production earnings were slightly on the rise this year compared to last year with $14.7 billion. They have discovered around 11 potential resources and have secured rights to more than 43,000 square kilometers of acreage. Their Gas & Power earnings were $2.8 billion up 6% compared to previous year. LNG sales were 13.18 million tones up by 9% compared to last year. Their downstream projects are very important to them with two out of three people working there. In this it earned $13.1 billion in revenue. Focus Area: Their focus is to improve efficiency in all their operations, upstream and downstream. To produce more energy from conventional oil and gas and unconventional sources such as oil sands, they would concentrate more on operational excellence,

technology and good project management. Their differentiated fuel V-Power has clearly shown this capability. They foresee that the business environment is conducive enough for their growth in the long term. 2. THE INCOME STATEMENT a) Determine whether any of the following special items appear on the most recent income statement. They would appear near the end. Indicate below whether the items appears and (if it appears) indicate whether it increased or decreased net income. Then explain the underlined event of transaction that cost the item to arise. Item present? NA NA NA Increase Decrease

1.Discontinued operation 2.Extra ordinary gain (or loss) 3.Cumulative effect of change in accounting principle

b) Using your judgment list the major items of revenue and expense that are reported on your company’s most recent income statement. For each item indicate whether it is revenue or an expense. Do not include any of the special items from part A above. (in $ million) Expense

Revenue 1. Revenue 2. Selling, distribution and administrative expense 3. Share of profit of equity-accounted investment 4. Interest and other income 5. Exploration 3. THE BALANCE SHEET 355,782

16,621 8,234 2,698 1,712

a) Identify the amounts your firms reported for each of the following categories and percentage of total assets that each represents. 1.Current assets 2.Property, plant and equipment 3.Other long term assets 4.Currents liabilities 5.Long term liabilities 6.Contributed capital 7.Retained earnings Amount (in $ million) 115,397 101,521 5,760 94,384 3,893 125,968 111,668 Percent 42.83 37.67 2.14 35.03 1.44 46.75 41.44

Note: If you were a creditor of a firm (i.e. the firm owed you money) you would be interested in whether the firm had enough resources to pay you when your bill came due. Two indicators of a firm’s ability to pay its bills as they come due are (1) the amount of working capital (2) the current ratio (sometimes called working capital ratio). Working capital (WC) is the cushion by which total current assets exceed total current liabilities. WC = current assets – current liabilities The current ratio (CR) reveals how many rupees of current assets are available to pay off each rupee of current liability. CR = current assets / current liability b) What amount of working capital did your company have as of the date of its two most recent balance sheets? (in $ million) Working capital Most recent balance sheet 21,013 Next most recent balance sheet 15,137

c) What was the current ratio at the end of the two most recent years? For comparison to other firms check with five classmates (who are analyzing different firms) to see what their results were. Record those results below along with those of your firm. List the names of each comparative firm. Most recent year Your firm 1.22 1. ExxonMobil Corporation 1.47 2. GAIL India Limited 1.69 3. British Petroleum 1.023 Note: Only Oil & Natural Gas industry is considered Next most recent year 1.2 1.55 1.65 0.986

d)How does your firm appear to compare to the other firms you listed above regarding its ability to pay current liabilities as they become due? The CR of Royal Dutch Shell plc is greater than one; hence they are in a position to pay its current liabilities. Also, if its balance sheet is analyzed closely it can be seen that out of the total current assets inventories account for 27.3%, Accounts receivables 64.33% and 8.36%. From this it can be inferred that most of their assets are highly liquid in nature. When compared to other big players in Oil & Natural gas industry throughout the world it has fared better than British Petroleum but not as good as ExxonMobil Corporation. It would not be proper to compare CR’s of Shell with smaller Indian companies operating in other industries, hence they are purposely excluded.

4. STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS a) In the spaces following fill in the proper summary amounts from your company’s most recent statement of cash flows. If any of the four categories represented a net cash outflow show that amount in parenthesis. Note: all figures in $ million 1. Net cash inflow (outflow) from operating activities: 34,461 List the two largest transactions a) Income for the period: 31,926 b) Adjustment for current taxation: (20,076) 2. Net cash inflow (outflow) from financing activities: (19,393) List the two largest transactions c) Dividends paid to shareholders of Royal Dutch Shell Plc: (9,001) d) Change in minority interest: (6,757) 3. Net cash inflow (outflow) from investing activities: (14,570) List the two largest transactions a) Capital expenditure: (24,576) b) Proceeds from sale of assets: 8,566 4. Net increase (decrease) in cash or sometimes labeled net change in cash and cash equivalents for the year: 654 (has effects of currency translation differences) b) Now go back to the balance sheet and fill in the following amounts that are reported for cash (under the assets category) 1. Current year’s ending cash balance: 9,654 2. Prior year’s ending cash balance: 9,002 3. Change in cash balance during the current year: 654 a) Does the number on line b. 3) above match the number in line a.4 above? Yes, it matches Hint. They should match this is an example of financial statement articulation, which means that numbers reported on one financial statement are related to numbers on the other statements.

5. The statement of stockholder’s equity. a) Did your company include a statement of stockholder’s equity with the rest of its financial statements? Yes, it has included stockholder’s equity b) Carefully review the most recent year’s data on the statement of stock holder’s equity. Were there any significant changes in the amounts comprising stock holder’s equity between the beginning of the year and the end of the year? If so, complete the table below for the significant changes. In the right most column, use parenthesis to indicate a balance that decreased. Statement of Balance at Balance at end of Change in balance stockholder’s equity beginning of year year during year accounts Retained earnings 99,677 111,668 11,991 Other reserves Minority interest Treasure shares 8,820 9,219 (3,316) 14,148 2,008 (2,392) 5,328 (7,211) 924

6. Notes to the financial statements. a) The footnote is usually labeled something like summary of significant accounting policies. It explains which accounting alternative that management selected to handle a particular type of transaction. Give two examples of an accounting policy disclosed in this note. 1. Nature of Operations and Segmental Reporting – Shell is engaged in all principal aspects of the oil and natural gas industry, and also has interests in chemicals and additional interests in power generation and renewable energy(chiefly in wind and advanced solar energy). Shell conducts its business through six principal business segments, Exploration & Production, Gas & Power, Oil Sands, Oil Products, Chemicals and Corporate. These activities are conducted in more than 110 countries and territories. With effect from 2007, segment information is reported in accordance with IFRS 8 operating segments, which has replaced IAS 14 segment reporting. IFRS 8 was not required to be adopted until 2009. 2. Accounting Standards and Interpretations not yet adopted – Certain accounting standards and interpretations are in issue which are not required to be adopted until after 2007 and have not been early adopted by Shell. Those pronouncements which may have a future impact on Shell’s accounting policies above or on the presentation of the consolidated financial statements, are the revised IAS 1

presentation of financial statements issued in September 2007 and not required to be adopted by Shell until 2009, which will require certain changes in presentation, and revised IFRS3 Business Combinations and IAS 27 Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements, both issued in January 2008, and not required to be adopted by Shell until 2010, where the assessment is at an early stage but which only have an accounting impact for transactions after adoption. b) What type of information is revealed in the remaining footnotes? In the remaining footnotes details are given of most of the individual heads of Balance Sheet. Example being details of debt, deferred tax, retirement benefits, Treasury shares, etc. 7. Statement of management responsibility and the report of independent accountants Differentiate between the roles of a company’s management and its auditor with respect to the financial statement. Company Management: The company management is responsible in preparing the Annual Report, the Directors’ Remuneration Report and the financial statements. The Financial Statements are made in accordance to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). In preparing these financial statements, the management is required to: ? Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently; ? Make judgments and estimates that are reasonable and prudent; ? State that the financial statements comply with IFRS as adopted by the European Union and IFRS as issued by the IASB; and ? Prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis, unless it is inappropriate to assume that Royal Dutch Shell or Shell group will continue in business. The management is responsible for keeping proper accounting records. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of Royal Dutch Shell and the Shell group. Along with this they are also responsible in assisting independent auditors with all the financial details. Independent Auditors: The independent auditors do not hold responsibility of their opinion to any other person than trustee and the Royal Dutch Shell plc Class B shareholders. They report if the statement is gives a true and fair view and also if the trust has not kept proper accounting records. It also checks if the audited report is consistent with all the audited financial statements. Other than the above they hold no responsibility of anything to anyone.

8. Articulation of financial statements. Articulation of financial statements refers to information on one financial statement being related to information on another financial statement. Find an additional example of articulation in your company’s financial statements beyond the example involving cash from number 4.c. Describe it. Interest and other income and interest expense: This financial statement deals with income received due to interest, dividend and other income. It also highlights interest paid in form of interest, accretion expense and interest capitalization. This is used in Statement of Income financial statement.



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