Financial Intelligence

Iyad Mourtada, CMA, CIA, CFE

Knowing what the numbers really mean

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Why do smart managers make bad 1inancial decisions?3

Emotional IntelligenceFinancial Intelligence

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Neuron (nerve cell) is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by

electrical and chemical signaling.

Obtain

Store

Process

Connect

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Financial Numbers

Financial Information

Gross Margin = 22%

Operating Margin = 7.5%

Net Margin = 2.8%

Financial Knowledge

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Know What

Know nothing

Know How

Know WhyThe Continuum of Understanding (Cleveland 1982)

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ALLOCATION OF MENTAL SPACE

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Finance is an Art

I was very creative with my accounting, but not creative enough.

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Financial Numbers

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A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

X + Y = 1.10X:bat Y:ball X - Y = 1 Y = 0.05

1 + Y + Y = 1.10

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A person's inability to make sense of the numbers.

Do you know how to deal with numbers?

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800

400

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200

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100

100Potential Customers

Customers

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130

$ Millions

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01/2010 03/2010129

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100

$ Millions

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01/2009 03/1080

Look at the big picture

01/10

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Numbers tell a Story16

Financial Information

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Figuring out how much a company worth

Share Price X # of Shares

Present Value of Future Cash Flow

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Having more information is not always better

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Turning Financial Information into Financial Knowledge

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A company has more cash today when:

A. Accounts receivable increases.B. Profit increases.C. Customers pay their bills sooner.D. Retained earnings increases.

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Income Statement

- How do you account for any expenses and revenues? - Who decides how you should account for any expenses and revenues? The management! - How do they know? They dont! They guess. Lots of accounting decisions are just that guesses.

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Profit is an Estimate

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- Accountants had to make judgments decisions when they record financial transaction

- Financial managers need to make objective decisions based on these numbers that they get from accountants

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- All financial decisions are based on judgment.

- Different methods produce different results.

Accountants should give the most accurate picture of the company's performance. (read footnotes)

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Dont trust the numbers27

It is very important that you ask questions about the numbers to make sure that they are what you think they are.

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- There is always accounting judgment involved and that can lead to manipulation

- Manipulation can benefit the company (It is not illegal)

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- Accounting change that is material to the bottom line should be footnoted but who decide what is material and what isnt? Accountants

- GAAP only provide guidelines

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Questions:

Who control your organization?

Are the accountants making the right judgment decisions?

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Cooking the Financial Books

Assumptions (What ingredients to include)Estimates (How much to include)

You may assume that theyre accurate down to the last dollar. Not true! The balance in the cash account is exact, but virtually every other number you see in a financial report is based on an estimate.

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Increase Revenue(Revenue Recognition)

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- Sold equipments on four-year leases, including service and maintenance. - Booked all the revenues up front.

- Xerox mis-stated four years' worth of profits, resulting in an overstatement of close to $6bn.

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Channel Stuffing

Company inflates sales figures by forcing more products through a distribution channel than the channel is capable of selling to the world at large.

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Reduce Expenses(Matching Principle)

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Income Statement

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- Took a pretax charge -a one-time write off- of 3.54 billion against its earnings

- Grow rapidly by buying other garbage companies. But didn't know to run them.

- Changed the depreciation of their 20,000 tracks from 8-10 years to 12-15 years and did the same for their 1.5 million dumpsters

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Which is more important?

A. How much you makeB. How much you keepC. How much you borrowD. How much you spend

Net Profit

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Balance Sheet

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By the end of 2003, it was estimated that the company's total assets had been inflated by around $11 billion

In June 2002, the company admitted it had inflated its profits by $3.8bn between January 2001 and March 2002.

U n d e r r e p o r t i n g l i n e costs ( interconnect ion e x p e n s e s w i t h o t h e r t e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n companies) by capitalizing these costs on the balance sheet rather than properly expensing them.

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Goodwill

Goodwill = Price paid - net assets (Assets - Liability)

Goodwill = $6 - (5 - 2) = 3

Goodwill could be amortized over a maximum of forty years or the estimated useful life of the acquired business.

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Brand value accounts for approximately %30 of the market capitalization of the S&P 500(Millward Brown Optimor, 2007).

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- Bought 600 companies in 2000 and 2001 (undervalued the assets and increase the goodwill) = Higher profit

- Tyco suffered more than a $9 billion loss in 2002, which included the asset impairment write-down by over $3 billion, losses of nearly $2 billion for the two restructuring charges, and over $1 billion from the two goodwill impairment charges. In all, the net charges totaled nearly $7 billion of the loss that year.

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Enron established partnerships that enabled them to move some of their debt into affiliate companies that should have been independent but weren't. Ultimately, the partnerships were doing the borrowing, which protected Enron's credit ratings.

If you own more than 50% of a company it must be consolidated on the parent company balance sheet, but if you own less than 50%, it typically stays off the balance sheet as an unconsolidated affiliate.

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Cash is King

Warren Buffett

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Profit = Cash

Profit will be turned into cashProfit without cash Cash without profit

Cash Flow Statement: - Cash In - Cash Out

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ABC CorporationStatements of Cash Flows

Years Ended December 31, 2009 and 2008

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%&'()*+,-./0/)12)34'0/)5,+6)780+&9.:;)

Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?

A. YesB. NoC. Cannot be determined

Jack Anne GeorgeMarried Unmarried

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Profess iona ls , who have knowledge and experience, may think they can make decisions without really using their minds. They dont expect new things and they miss them. They look at the details and forget the big picture.

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While you might not have all the answers, you should know what questions to ask.

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Strategic Financial Decisions

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www.openthinkingacademy.com

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