Corp.finance 5: corporate governance

Summarize corporate governance considerations (source: cur 4, pg 156-157)

THE BOARD

Investors & shareholders should

1. Determine whether a Company's Board has, at minimum, a majority of Independent Board Members 
2. Determine whether Board Members have the qualifications the Co. needs for the challenges it faces.
3. Determine whether the Board & its committees have budgetary authority to hire Independent third-party consultants without having to receive approval from management
4. Determine whether Board Members are elected annually, or whether the Co. has adopted an election process that staggers the terms of Board Member election
5. Investigate whether the Co. engages in outside business relationship with management or Board Members, or individuals associated with them, for goods & services on behalf of the Co.
6. Determine whether the Board has established a committee of Independent Board Members, including those with recent & relevant experience of finance & accounting, to oversee the audit of the Co.'s financial reports
7. Determine whether the Co. has a committee of IBMs (Independent Board Members) charged with setting executive remuneration/compensation
   
8. Determine if the Co. has a nominations committee of IBMs that is responsible for recruiting Board Members
9. Determine whether the Board has other committees that are responsible for overseeing management's activities in selected areas, such as corp. governance, M&A, legal matters, or risk management.

MANAGEMENT

Investors & shareholders should:

1. Determine whether the Co. has adopted a code of ethics, & whether the Co's actions indicate a commitment to an appropriate ethical framework
2. Determine whether the Co. permits Board Members & management to use Co. assets for personal reasons
3. Analyze both the amounts paid to executives for managing the Co's affairs, & the manner in which compensation is provided to determine whether compensation paid to its executives is commensurate with the executives' level of responsibilities & performance, & provides appropriate incentives.
4. Inquire into the size, purpose, means of financing & duration of share-repurchase programs & price stabilization efforts.

SHAREOWNER RIGHTS

 Investors & shareowners should:

1. Determine whether the Co. permits shareholders to vote their shares by proxy regardless of whether they are able to attend the meetings in person
2. Determine whether shareowners are able to cast confidential votes
3. Determine whether shareowners can cast the cumulative number of votes allotted to their shares for one or a limited number of Board norminees
4. Determine whether shareowners can approve changes to corp. structures & policies that may alter the relationship btw shareowners & the Co.
5. Determine whether & under what circumstances shareowners can nominate individuals for election to the Board
6. Determine whether & under what circumstances shareowners can submit proposals for consideration @ the Co's annual general meeting.
7. Determine whether the Board & management are required to implement proposals that shareowners approve.
8. Examine the Co's ownership structure to determine whether it has different class of common shares that separate the voting rights of those shares form their economic value
9. Determine whether the corp. governance code & other legal statutes of the jurisdiction in which the Co. is headquartered permit shareowners to take legal or seek regulatory action to protect & enforce their ownership rights.
10. Carefully evaluate the structure of of existing or proposed takeover defenses & analyze how they could affect the value of shares in a normal market environment & in the event of a takeover bid.
    
    

    IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS

    
    

• corporate governance: system of internal controls & procedures by which individual co. are managed. Good corp. governance practices seek to ensure that:
• Board members act in the best interests of shareholders
• related to interest conflict
  
• the Co. acts in a lawful & ethical manner in their dealings with all stakeholders & their representatives
• all shareholders have the same right to participate in the governance of the Co. & receive fair treatment from the Board & management, & all rights of shareowners & other stakeholders are clearly delineated & communicated.
• the Board & its committees are structured to act independently from management, individuals or entities that have control over management, & other non-shareholders group.
• appropriate controls & procedures are in place covering management's activities in running the day-to-day operations of the Co.
• the Co's operating & financial activities, as well as its governance activities, are consistently reported to shareowners in a fair, accurate, timely, reliable, relevant, complete & verifiable manner
• Independence: a Board member considered as Independent member MUST NOT have a material business or other relationship with some specific individuals/groups
  
• Board members or Directors: all individuals who sit on the Board, including Executive Board Members, Non-Executive Board Member, Independent Board Members
• Ex-BM: members of executive management
• IBM: individual who meets the "Independence" qualification.
  
• Non-ex BM: neither Ex-BM nor IBM. represent interests that may conflict with those of other shareowners (such as: union)
  
• Board: refers to both the Supervisory Board
• Board of Corp. Auditors in countries with a Two-Tier Board structure (such as Japan)
  
• Board of Directors in countries that use a Unitary Board

Two structures of Board

• Two-Tier Board (Dual Board): has 2 elements: Management Board & Supervisory Board
• Mgnt Board: 
• consists exclusively of Ex-mgnt & its charged with running the Co. on a daily basis & 
• setting the corp. strategy for the Co.
• do NOT sit on the Co's Supervisory Board
• Sup. Board:
• charged with overseeing & advising the Co's MB
• includes only IBM & Non-Ex BM
• Corp. Auditors System:
• this structure is called Corp. Auditors System & very popular in Japan
• Including:
• Board (<=> Sup. Board)
  
• Board of Corp. Auditors
  
• Unitary Board: 2 elements: Boards & Committee system
  
• Board (<=> Sup. Board) 
• may include all: Ex BM, Non-ex BM & IBMs.
• Oversees & advises mgnt & helps set corp. strategy, it could ignore daily activities but can't ignore important matters i.e. mergers, acquisitions, divestitures & sales (spin-off?)
• Committee system
• <=> Unitary Board in Japan (in comparison with Corp. Auditors system)
• use a Board consisting of Ex-BM, IBM & Non-ex BM

• Company: 
• firm in which shareonwers have an ownership position
• in which investors are considering an investment
• (hic, so, all positions used "firm" in Corp. finance should be change into "company". the reason is that i'm lazy to type company so i use "firm" for shorter typing)
• Investors: all individuals or institutions who are considering investment opportunities in shares & other securities of the Co.
• Shareowners (shareholders, in  my typing /:) ): distinguished from investors by referring only to those individuals, institutions or entities that OWN shares or common or ordinary stocks in the Co.
  

Corp.finance 4: Financial statement analysis (FSA)

Introduction:
In this reading, we use 2 tools to do FSA:

• Dupont analysis for historical performance: separate ROA, ROE into some parts which could tell more 'bout the performance.
• Pro foma for future forecast

Ok, let's start.

DUPONT ANALYSIS

• Applying for ROA
• = Net income/total assets
• = NI/sales * sales/total assets
• = net profit margin * total asset turnover
• Net profit margin can be analyzed more specific:
• = (Earning before tax - taxes)/sales
  
• = (EBT-taxes)/EBT * EBT/operating income * operating income/sales
  
• = (1-taxes/EBT) * EBT/ operating income * operating income/ sales
• = tax burden * interest burden (or: effect of nonoperating item) * operating profit margin
  
• for ROE:
• = NI/total Equity
• = ROA* total assets/ total equity
• => applied similar analysis

PRO FOMA technique

• Use: forecast future financial statement
  
• Steps:

Corp.finance 3: Working capital Management (1) - cash & Short-term investments

Working capital, including:

Asset:

1. Cash
2. Short-term investments
3. Account of Receivable (A/R)
4. Account of Payable (A/P)
5. Inventories

Liabilities:
Short-term liabilities

Measure the efficiency of them in operation activities:

• Ratios
• Current ratio = current asset/current liability = CA/CL (notes: NO AVERAGE!)
• Quick ratio (acid-test ratio) = (cash + short-term marketable investment + Receivables)/CL
  
• Turnover
•  A/R turnover = Credit sales/AVERAGE receivables
• Credit sales: % of sales or if n/a: use industry data
• A/P turnover = Purchases/AVERAGE payables
• Purchase = Ending Inventory - Beginning Inventory + COGS
• Inventory turnover = COGS/AVERAGE inventory
  
• Days:
• Number of days of Receivables = Accounts Receivable/ AVERAGE day's sales on credit
• = A/R : (credit sales/365)
  
• Number of days of Payables = A/P / AVERAGE day's purchases
• = A/P : (purchases/365)
• Number of days of Inventory = Inventory/ AVERAGE day's COGS
• = Inventory/ (COGS/365)
• Notes: 
• turnovers do NOT EQUAL to 365/number of days; vice versa: Number of days... NOT equal to (1/turnover)*365
• however, when the question does NOT provide enough information => use info. as much as possible
  
• Inferred definition:
  
• Operating cycle = No. of days of Receivables + No. of days of Inventory
• NET operating cycle <=> cash conversion cycle = No. of days of Receivables + No. of days of Inventory - No. of days of Payables = Operating cycle - No. of days of Payables

Now, let's talk 'bout managing these 5 items

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2011.03.22: trong lúc google về mấy mô hình quản lý tài sản ngắn hạn, tìm được file này khá đầy đủ, cụ tỉ, chi tiết. personally mình thấy phần này trong CFA viết ko đầy đủ sâu sắc cho lắm (hay đợi L2, L3 mới sâu sắc thì ko rõ nữa ^^)

Link đây

Corp.finance 2: Cost of capital (Chi phí vốn)

* Definition

• Cost of capital: 
• the rate of return required by capital suppliers: bondholders, stockholders (owners)
• the opportunity cost of funds for the suppliers of capital
• Component of capital: firm has several alternatives for raising capital: bonds, stocks, preferred stock => each source of capital becomes a component of the firm's funding & has a COST => called: component of capital
• Weighted average cost of capital: WACC
• Wd*rd*(1-T) + Wp*rp + We*re
• Wd, Wp, We: the portion of debt, preferred stock, equity, respectively, in total capital (notes: capital, in capital budgeting, NOT includes short-term capital)
• rd, rp, re (or Kd, Kp, Ke): the cost of debt, preferred stock, equity, respectively
• T: tax rate
  

* More detailed

• Taxes: 'cos debt expenses are deductible => the tax saving is subtracted cost of debt
• Weights
• target capital structure
• current capital structure, @ market value
• average (industry) data
  
• Marginal cost of capital (MCC) & Investment opportunity schedule (IOS)
• Flotation cost: add to expenses of the year <=> cash out flow; NO add to cost of capital
  

Now, let's talk 'bout cost of each type of capital
1. Cost of debt:

• YTM
• Debt-rating approach
• Some features could makes rd higher or lower, depends on the benefit it creates, belongs to whom

2. Cost of preferred stock

rp = D1/P0

3. Cost of equity

• CAPM approach: Ke = E(r) = Rf + beta*(Rm - Rf)
  
• DDM approach: Ke = D1/P0 + g
• g = growth rate = (1 - D/EPS)*ROE = b*ROE
• b = company's earning retention rate = 1 - D/EPS
• Bond yield plus risk premium approach: E(r) = bond yield + risk premium (notes: bond yield NO deducting tax)
  
• Adjust for country risk
• country equity premium = sovereign yield spread * (annualized standard deviation of equity index/ annualized standard deviation of the sovereign bond market in terms of the developed market currency) 
• Or, in short: Rc = delta Rf * SDe/SDd
• affection to E(r) in CAPM: E(r) = Rf + beta * [(Rm - Rf) + Rc]
• Estimating beta?
• beta equity (or beta levered) ### beta asset (or beta unlevered)
• beta asset = beta equity / [1+ ((1-t)*D/E)]
• beta equity = beta asset* [1 + (1-t)*D/E]
  
• Estimating a beta using the pure-play method
1. select the comparable: determine comparable company or companies operating in similar business risk
2. estimate those comparable companies' equity beta
3. unlever the equity beta at (2) => beta asset
4. lever the beta asset at (3) (for the financial risk of the considering company/project) => equity beta of the considering company/project
   

* Reality: CAPM is popular: larger co., public co., knowledge CEO/CFOs => use CAPM more.

Corp.finance 1: Capital budgeting (hoạch định ngân sách vốn đầu tư)

* Role, meanings
- liên quan tới cơ cấu tài sản & cơ cấu vốn <=> ảnh hưởng đến toàn bộ hoạt động của DN

* Steps of capital budgeting: 

1. generating idea
   
2. analyzing individual proposal
   
3. planning the capital budgeting
   
4. monitoring & post-auditing
   

* Projects categories

Kinh tế vi mô (3): Các hành vi trong thị trường (market in action)

Như đã nói trong bài trước, có 6 yếu tố làm cản trở sự hiệu quả & công bằng trong phân phối nguồn lực. Trong bài này, chúng ta sẽ nghiên cứu 2 trong số 6 yếu tố đó, gồm có:

1. Price ceiling & price floor (giá trần & giá sàn)
2. Taxes & subsidies (thuế & trợ cấp & nhân tiện, nghiên cứu thêm cả quota)

Chúng ta cũng nghiên cứu cả thị trường đối với hàng hóa fi fáp, ko fải trên góc độ fáp luật mà hoàn toàn dựa vào những nguyên tắc & quy luật economic ;)

Okie, let's start!

Kinh tế vi mô (4): Organizating Production (Tổ chức sản xuất)

Sau khi đã "dạo quanh phố phường, dạo qua thị trường", giờ chúng ta sẽ view kỹ hơn vào từng firm. Bài này trả lời các câu hỏi:

1. Mục tiêu của 1 cty là gì?
2. Để đạt đc mục tiêu đó thì cty fải làm gì?
3. Những việc làm ở (2) lại gặp fải các constraints (trở ngại), cụ tỉ là: technological constraint, information constraint, & market constraint => đối fó với n~ constraint này ra sao?
   
4. Cuối cùng, tại sao cty sản xuất cái lọ & mua cái chai - sx bởi n~ cty khác trên thị trường, thay vì sx cái chai & mua cái lọ?
   

Ok, let's start.